Creative use for Fruits and Vegetables ... or, Fun in the Snow

This is Nessa's snowman from last weekend! Nessa had help from a certain wonderful Daddy, but I believe that she was the creative force behind the development of this unique little snow person.


Wondering what is making such a cheery smile on the adorable snowman? That would be a slice of red pepper! Two grapes for eyes and a carrot nose complete the look...oh and one of Megan's old hats. :-)





Nessa and Daddy had a great time out in the snow last weekend. Due to the extreme cold this winter it was actually the first time Nessa was able to just go play in the snow in our yard. It seems to be a winter of extremes in some ways as we'll be outside again this weekend as the snow melts -- either it has been too cold to be outside or it's warm enough to start melting things into a sloppy mess. Well, hopefully we'll get at least a little sledding time in yet this winter.

~Tami

As if the winter wasn't long enough...

This Monday morning we're getting snow! Okay, so it could be worse and anyone even a wee bit farther north will probably tell me so, but still ... yuck!

There were faint little flakes Saturday morning, but today it's actually settling into little white mounds in the colder areas of the ground (not the streets or sidewalks at this point). Luckily we had a nice weekend in spite of the "doesn't quite feel like Spring" weather. From helping Megan w/ a school project that included my first transfer from our camcorder to CD via computer (Friday night), to a Saturday that went from early morning rummage sales to a night at the theater with Megan and her friend, and a Sunday afternoon that included reading an entire (fiction!) book while Nessa napped (so what if if it was Megan's new book that I wanted to make sure was appropriate, it still counts ... and it was a good book).

If I don't freeze while working in this cold house today, I might get around to posting pics soon.

It's A Good Thing It's Spring...

... 'cause if this is spring, I can't take any more winter.

My beautiful river view at work currently consists of snow flying horizontally across the window. This is never good.

The sky is so grey I can't see the bluffs on the far side of the Mississippi. Temperatures are a good 15-20 degrees below average for this time of year. All I can do is sit here and think of Jimmy Buffet songs: "Boat Drinks", "One Particular Harbor", and others.

I remember it snowing in early May in Northfield MN when I was a freshman in college, but other than that this is the latest I can remember it snowing. And yet, thanks to all the moisture we've been getting, my lawn is green and the dandelions have already started to appear.

I don't suppose there's any chance that the snow will kill the dandelions...

Quick update

So, do you think a month is too long to go between posts (my last one was on Feb 7th)? I do, and I'm hoping it won't happen again ... or at least not for a LONG, long time.

Speaking of long, I think I'm going to start referring to this as The Long Winter. So the update on the weather is that it is STILL cold most days (had a few snow melting days but for the most part the snow hills on the corners are still making seeing at intersections challenging), and there is no end to it in the current weather forecast.

If you caught the Little House reference...you or your child (or mine if she's on your gift-giving list) might appreciate knowing about the one site that I finally found that carries all of the extended Little House series: http://www.allamish.com/little_house_series.shtml The rest of you didn't know there was an extended series, did you? Yes, the wonderful gentleman at allamish.com even informed me that there are nearly 100 books in said series and Megan informed me that she wants to OWN each and every one of them. Yes, Megan still loves everything that has to do with the Little House books and we will be distributing a wish list for birthdays and holidays until Megan has read all she can about all of Laura's ancestors and descendants.

After a busy but low-key January recovering from holidays, we had a busy February that seems to have disappeared into oblivion now. Most recently, we've been fighting off illnesses and trying to increase our immunity when we are not actually sick.

Megan is on her second round of antibiotics for Strep as she tested positive for it again just a couple of days after finishing her first round of antibiotics. I'm thinking this is sounding sadly familiar. (I remember the same thing happening to me as a kid ... they finally took my tonsils out when I was 16.)

Nessa was doing so great this winter ... until just over a week ago, and at this bleary-eyed moment I wonder if she'll ever be back to her smiley self. Nessa seems to have a virus making the rounds that lingers and lingers and lingers -- fever, sleepy, lethargic at times, and simply not very happy when awake. The most frustrating thing is that the fever comes and goes and at times she has looked on her way to being herself only to have it all come back again. We did take her to the doctor on Wednesday but no strep and nothing else that the family doc could see. I was a little concerned the day she slept 20 hours out of 24 though in spite of the reassurance that it was just a virus going around.

Work is consuming more and more of my time this month -- it is deadline time and there is A LOT of work today before that April release. But the really big news at work is that Friday I met with my boss as well as one of the Vice Presidents in town and I now have a full time position there (there, now being referred to as ECi La Crosse).

This was a challenging transition for me to make personally, but should make for a much less frustrated me at work and since I'm keeping my flexiblity in where and when I work, it should work well on a personal level as well. And really while the salary move should be nice (it's not in the bank yet though ... HR paperwork, yadda, yadda), by far the best part is that I now will have lots of room for professional development. This is what I have really wanted, and I didn't even realize how much I wanted it until I was given the opportunity to go to a conference at the last minute -- I'm now registered for the WritersUA Conference in Portland March 16-20th (http://www.writersua.com/ohc/index.html) . As soon as I actually get into the office to use the corporate credit card I will also again be an STC member (http://www.stc.org/), and my boss has already brought up the idea of my attending the STC conference in June in Philly. There will also be a couple of trips a year to the Dallas/Fort Worth area (ECi headquarters). It seems that there will also be plenty of room for innovative ideas, and that I'm excited about. Of course there is just lots of work to be done in general to get there too. :-)


If you can't wait for me to post new photos here you can always check out the flickr feed as I try to update that more frequently (February photos uploaded) or the Google photos if you prefer.

Think Spring!!!

A quick break on a beautiful winter day

I'm working a full day at work today (versus working anywhere my laptop will open), and here I spend my time in an inner cube -- no windows, etc. Today, I needed to get to the outside world -- the real outside world, not the online one. So, I just took a quick break and walked a few blocks, peaked my head into a downtown La Crosse store, did a bit of quick window shopping, and stopped in my favorite downtown place for an indulgent hot beverage. It was a wonderful break made even more wonderful by how genuinely refreshing being outside was.

Yes, it is a beautiful winter day here.

When I came back to my desk I had to check the current temp, and was shocked to see it's only 22 degrees --- but it is bright and sunny with no wind, so yes, a beautiful winter day. I truly wish we had more days like this. Walking and taking deep breaths was so wonderful. It was just the relaxation and rejuvenation I needed today.

And I have to admit I didn't even feel guilty at my enjoyment ... even though I have friends just a bit south of here that were hit hard with another snow storm last night (yeah, it missed us this time!). :-)

Other smiles were brought to me recently by the most thoughtful supportive husband in the world (and with just the right amount of mischief for added laughter and smiles), and my daughters who yesterday were more sweet than sour even though we required them to sit through an evening Ash Wednesday church service.

Now, back to work...

Blogging by the fire; or, brrrr it's cold out there

My parents stopped by for lunch today which is always a nice Saturday treat for all of us, and the girls get especially excited for days before and after even if it doesn't seem as if they're appreciating it much at the time. It was especially nice today since we certainly weren't letting the girls out of the house!

At the moment I'm curled up with a laptop and a quilt in front of a roaring fire that Shawn built for us. I do love to have a fire in the fireplace, but this is actually a necessity for using the Great Room during weather like this as the room was definitely not designed or built to retain heat. And while sometimes I say I'll take any excuse I can get for a fire, I really could do without the frigid temperatures.

(Oh, there she goes on about the weather again...)

Before starting to blog I had to do a little research. When Dad came he said that the radio was reporting that La Crosse was the warm spot of the region so head towards La Crosse. I thought geez how bad is the rest of the region since I knew we were going to struggle to make above zero temps today. Well, the current temperature in La Crosse (Sat. 1/19 4 p.m.) is -4 and it feels like -22, but hey it is sunny out. So, then I pulled up the regional maps from the Weather Channel and while the forecast map did show La Crosse as the "hot spot" with a prediction of a zero high (don't think we got there), the actual temperatures across the region actually has the Twin Cities and Brainerd a few degrees warmer than us, and if you want the warm spot in Wisconsin it's Milwaukee at 2 degrees (yes, above zero). BUT, at these temperatures ... a few degrees really doesn't matter much. It's still blimp'n cold.

Thursday was the first day in a long time that I was really ready to move south. Our company headquarters (the one that bought us -- ECI2 not LMS) is in the Dallas - Fort Worth area and on Thursday if they would have offered me a job I would not have even hesitated ... well, maybe I could get a trip in yet this winter. On the other hand if they wait and ask me to go in July or August I don't think I'll be too happy about it.

Why Thursday? Well, Thursday we got more snow. Actually it started Wednesday night. Then it snowed all day Thursday. It wasn't heavy snow (in all, 5 inches), but just enough to make a really good mess without it being enough for the roads, sidewalks, parking lots etc. to be taken care of in a manner that prevented fishtailing with the car/van all over or getting snow up to your ankles when walking in and out of buildings. And, as always, it was a pain to get snow off of the van each time before driving (an extra pain for us short people).

Because it was 10 degrees (air temp, not windchill so it really felt colder) during the warmest part of the day, our wonderful daycare teachers could only let the kids watch the snow through the large windows in the main room. They are studying polar bears, igloos, penguins and all things cold lately so at least the weather cooperated. I imagine that Nessa wasn't the only one that went home and "helped" shovel though. When we left daycare I fell for Nessa telling me she would stay standing (versus sit or lay down in the snow) when we didn't put her snow pants on (she was VERY bundled up except no snow pants) ... So I agreed that she could help shovel for awhile rather than going right in the house. Well, within minutes she was covered in snow of course. Every time I mentioned going inside she would scream. Fifteen minutes later I dragged her in. Her thick sweat pants are luckily pretty thick and warm as no wetness wet through and she was just normal cold and not dangerous cold. And while the driveway and sidewalk looked pretty good when Shawn came home, he could also tell that Nessa had helped. :-)

Tonight we're going to brave the cold to go out to eat, see a play, and meet friends for drinks afterwards. I politely informed Shawn that there should be no question about parking and walking from place to place. We will always park as close as possible to where we go tonight. And layers will rule over fashion (as if I was ever not practical these days ... I'm so glad I went for the practical and LONG coat from Land's End earlier this winter ... and so glad I found a hat that I like that fits my big head too, lol).

Tomorrow it's another laid back weekend day ... good for catching up on lots of normal household chores, snuggling by the fire, and rumour has it that there is some football on too. ;-)

With any luck I'll catch up on all of the photos I have to post ... until then you can always see what new things I've posted on flickr (the other night I even added descriptions to most of the new ones) -- http://www.flickr.com/photos/brooksgroth

Stay warm...

It's a Marshmallow World

OR, as Shawn says: "Enough looking a lot like Christmas Already"

We arrived home this afternoon. It was a nice sunny drive (meaning Nessa screamed several times about the sun in her eyes), and we had to get quite close to home to see evidence of a snowstorm. We could tell the ridge had certainly had some drifting snow, but from our view off of the Interstate the drifts didn't look that big. The closer we got to WI, the more snow we saw. Then, we crossed the bridge over the river, and it was suddenly obvious that there had been quite a snowstorm!


After using the snow blower so we didn't have to trudge through the 14 inches of snow (higher at the end of the driveway due to both drifting and the plow pack) in order to unload the van, Shawn decided to take a few pictures. We won't be getting in the back gate for awhile (above).

Imagine walking through the driveway before it was plowed. That is what I did while carrying Nessa this afternoon. Luckily I at least had my boots on, but since the snow was up to my knees I had dry feet and wet lower legs. I think Nessa was oblivious as our tired girl just huddled down on my shoulder.




The last picture is our neighbors house. We don't often see the bushes covered up with snow.

Shawn says the biggest problem with a white Christmas is that it sticks around for so long afterwards. I'm feeling a bit more generous this Christmas Eve. We spent a wonderful weekend with family, were lucky enough to have good people tromp through the snow to check on our cats when we were unexpectedly away longer than we had planned, and well, it's Christmas. :-) And we do live in Wisconsin. Last year is wasn't until March that we had this much snow, and I would MUCH rather have it NOW. (OK, now I know there is a good chance we could have it both now and then, but that's only a chance and I'm an optimist.)

I see many snow angels covering that "whip cream" yard by Wednesday. :-)

It's a marshmallow world in the winter,
When the snow comes to cover the ground,