A Very Cold and Late Happy New Year

I survived the holidays and Christmas Vacation without loosing my mind. I do believe there should be some kind of medal for all parents who survive Christmas Break especially when it rains. Yes it rained, it rained for several days matter of fact my backyard is still muddy. Not to mention the crazy cold. Yesterday it did not get above freezing which wasn’t so bad because it was sunny (something that hadn’t happened in a week). Before I get a long email saying I don’t know what cold is let me explain I grew up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and remember the days of -20. I remember standing at the bus stop waiting for the bus discussing if it was below zero or not. Our conclusion if your nose hairs stuck together when you inhaled it was below zero (we referred to it as our boogers freezing). I want to also point out I live in the south because I don’t care for very cold weather. I happen to like the fact I am starting my seeds for my garden and will be doing yard work this weekend because it is suppose to be 75 degrees.

Yesterday started out with my daughter having a break down because her turquoise gloves were missing. Keep in mind she had ski gloves that go up to -10 but she wanted the knit gloves that do nothing. Usually I would have sent her to school with none but it was only 18 degrees outside and my northern self was screaming NO, SHE NEEDS GLOVES! I ended up giving her my gloves which left me without any because Booga decided my orange gloves were fun to hide. I wore a pair of Jeff’s gloves, ran some errands and outside of holding the steering wheel they were useless because they were huge. I got home and hunted for my orange gloves finally to find them in the Princess’s room (I have no idea why either). I also decided to insulate our front windows with bubble wrap. Yes the amazing bubble wrap works fantastic as insulation for windows. The key will be to make sure no one pops the bubbles as tempting as it is. I picked up Booga from Pre-School and ran some more errands, we got home around 2pm, the temperature was 26 degrees (for Savannah, crazy cold). I open the side door and hear gushing water, my heart stopped because that meant pipe burst. I grabbed my jacket put on some flip-flops (oh I was styling) and went to see where the water was coming from. I run onto my side porch and I can feel water, I look over into my neighbor’s yard and there is a geyser from one of their pipes. I go back inside and call my neighbor to let them know what happened. I shut their water off with the help of another neighbor who had a main key (very handy especially if it is cold). I then picked my daughter up from school. Not much shocks me anymore (years of hospitality with make you numb to a lot of things) but the children that came across the streets with no jackets or just sweatshirts was astonishing to me. I completely understand not wanting to spend $50 plus dollars on a coat for your child who will maybe wear the jacket four times a year but LAYER – put a lighter jacket on them with a sweatshirt or hoodie under. My children are lucky in that respect their grandparents both live in cold climates and can find winter jackets for great deals but I would still make sure my kids had a warm jacket.

I know I usually post a lot during the holidays of teacher gifts, other gifts, projects for the class and of course Girl Scouts projects but as you can see it is the 8th of January and I finally had the chance to post anything.

Teacher gifts – I did six of these (3 for Booga and 3 for the princess):