Beware the Storms of February

Beware the storms of February!  Not exactly beware the ides of March, but still has a nice ring to it.  Last night the mercury dropped to -25 at the coldest, this morning it was hovering at the -20 mark when I left for my meeting.  That is probably the coldest it has been since I moved to this land.  And even though it was a tad bit chilly it did not seem as cold as it was yesterday.  What a difference a bit of wind makes.

The hubby, bless his pointy little head, has fixed the heater in my car, and put some stuff in the front grill to make it a lot less susceptible to being cold as all get out...cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey...colder than a well digger's ass...cold enough to freeze hell over...and the cliches are done...in my car.  So I was actually quite toasty on my drive today.  Yay me.

Well poetry critiquing went as it usually does...blech.  I'm pretty sure I wouldn't hate it as much if I actually wrote the stuff, or was somehow invested in it, but unfortunately at this stage of my life I just can't seem to work up any enthusiasm for it.  Maybe when the spring springs around here I will be all glorying in the burgeoning of life, the universe, and everything, and I will become motivated to write poetry, maybe...but I doubt it.  Sigh. 

Anyway such is life, and such is the life of a wanna be writer.  But in the mean time we have prepared for the impending storm of doom which is predicted to hit us sometime this evening, and snow a little, then work itself up into a real howler and then drop a ton of snow on us tomorrow.  I did my part by hacking up a couple of pieces of wood as kindling, buying milk, eggs, bread, and then coming home and settling in for a day of hanging in the house until such time as we need to go out and shovel ourselves out.  Happy storm day all.  

Class

I had a great class today.  My writing was less than stellar, but there was something about the class that just resonated with me today.  I really, really heart taking classes that you actually get something from.  It's also just nice to be around like minded people.  I feel all warm and fuzzy inside, even though outside it is currently -19 and getting colder. 

By the way, I just started watching How I Met Your Mother, and I must say it is a pretty great series.  So far the writing has been excellent, quirky, and has given me some pretty good belly laughs.  I recommend season one and two...season three is also starting out pretty good.  I love Slaps-Giving Day. 

I want ta bop with ya baby all night long....

Second run down, millions to go.  My running discs are MIA so I dug through some old ones and put them into the machine-thing and ran to the oldies.  Dan Seal, Gordon Lightfoot, Boney M, Lynerd Skynerd, and many more.  I was sweating to the oldies, but not with Richard Simmons (yig).  I even did so much as sing along to the oldies.  Wow too bad you weren't here because I was rocking on baby. 

So this run was a tich bit faster than the last.  The knees were a tich bit more twingey, but not enough to be ouchie.  Water poured off my body, as per usual, even though I had the window open to the brisk outside air.  Once again the critters were locked out of the room because they have decided that the treadmill is the MOST exciting thing they have ever seen.  Even though they have probably seen it every day of their short little lives.  The whole moving thing seems to be what is facinating about it. 

Today I finished two stories, rewrote my five starts, and got my poetry critiquing done without having an aneurysm.  Oh Google, how I love you.  Just type in, Best methods for critiquing poetry, then pick your choice.  I worked like a hot dam.  So off to class tomorrow, here's hoping that the roads are nice. 

Behind...as Usual

I am behind in my homework.  Grrrrr.  This is getting to be a real habit with me as of late.  And what with everything I have to do it shouldn't come as a surprise.  Yes...ha...ha.  I know I've heard this from other people who are in the same situation as me, but how in the hell did I ever manage to get anything done while I was still working full time? 

Yesterday I was feeling all woo-hoo over the fact that I actually managed to go for a run then finish my next article and actually get is slightly polished before sending if off to my editor.  In fact I was feeling down right smug about the whole process.  But then today dawned bright and early and when I popped my eyes open I had two things go through my head.  1) I really have to call Geri cause its been ages since we spoke.  (Geri has been dead for almost ten years.)  2) I still haven't received this week's submission from my writers group. 

Obviously it didn't take me a long time to figure out thought number one, that was brought on by a dream I had about me, Geri, Glen, Colin, and Don getting together for a BBQ.  That was the group of us who used to meet every Thursday for lunch and we called ourselves the Haha Club.  The rule was you had to arrive with at least one joke to tell the assembly.  Colin, who was the mayor of our small hamlet, and a minister, (which I did not hold against him) was the best joker of us all.  Don, who was the editor of our local paper, had the longest jokes of all.  Geri and Glen, who worked together in Glen's law office, told jokes as a unit, one would start a joke, and the other would finish it.  I don't remember how I was at the joke telling, but based on present day ability, I expect I was pretty bad. 

My second thought of the morning turned out to be unnecessary because as I was making supper at 8am my iPad binged at me and I received an email with this weeks submission to critique.  It was POETRY!  OMG, I suck royal bee pollen at critiquing poetry.  I like poetry, usually the rhyming kind, I have even on occasion memorized poetry, Kubla Khan for example, but I suck...SUCK...at critiquing it. 

So I took the dog and went for a walk to clear my head, blow out the cobwebs, and of course let the pup smell the doggy newspaper to her heart's content.  Now it is getting to be later on in the afternoon (my witching hour) I still don't have my critiquing done.  And to top it all off I have decided that I do not like my Five Starts for my homework from last week and I want to redo it.  Which means that I am reeeeeaaaaaaaallllllllllllllllllllyyyyyyyyyyyyyy behind.  Sigh. 

On a happier note my legs don't feel too, too bad today.  A little twingy in the glutes and the adductors, but nothing to write home about.  Which means that I did just the right amount of distance and speed on my run yesterday.  It also means that the bit of stretching I did after the fact also paid off.  I haven't decided if I am going to run tomorrow, or wait one more day after that.  The one thing I have learned in the many, many, many years of self abuse through exercise is not to overdo it right from the beginning because down that road lies injury. 

You may also be asking if I have so much work to do what the hell am I doing sitting here blogging.  Your right, I should be doing my homework.  Quit nagging already.  ;p

Cowabunga!

Hey great news!  I finally got off my lazy butt and decided to go for a run today.  I was just setting up the treadmill and all my water and stuff and started to have these "Ah maybe I don't feel like it," thoughts.  Then I thought, "WTF?"  It has been months, and months since my last run and here I am having the perfect opportunity and then I start being all lazy about it.  Yikes, that is not like me at all.  Happily I powered through those negative thoughts and got on with it.  So yay me. 

Granted I only ran 20 minutes, and probably slower then the speed of a glacier, but at least I managed to get it done.  And the best part about the whole thing was that I was not a hurtin unit through it all.  This last spring, before mom got sick, when I started running again I was having some serious issues with the hips and knees.  I was a tad bit worried after the first five minutes when my left knee started to twinge, but that went away and I felt fine through out.  So one run down, 4,572,862 more runs to go.

Well the dire weather warnings have come to naught here in the south shore, but I hear tell that up in Cape Breton it is a whole other story.  Bad winds, lots of snow, and blizzardy kind of conditions.  It is snowing here, and it is windy, but so far it is just normal everyday kind of winter weather. Truth be told I really don't care what kind of weather we get as long as it is nice on Thursday and Friday, I have to drive to Lunenburg and Mahone Bay to class. 

This is my interpretation of a Partridge in a Pear Tree.  It is called, some Snowballs in a Plum Tree.  

Batten Down the Hatches...maybe

Yesterday I enjoyed a nice little walk sans snow, in fact there was not a bank, flake, nor ball of the stuff to be found anywhere.  This morning...serious flakage.  In fact it looks kind of purdy out there.  And as par for the course here on the very edge of the world the weather wizards are predicting dire warnings of snow, wind, and blizzard conditions.  It may, or may not, happen.  This is winter number three of me living here and so far I have discovered that the weather people are even more out to lunch on this end of the country than they were on the far west side.

Just thought I would put a picture in to contrast the one from the day before where I took the picture of the tree which was blown down.  (Tree has been cleaned up and dragged away.  But you can still see the broken stump on the right where it had come from.)  

Typically they predict severe winter conditions, and the sun comes out, the temperatures warm up, and the birds sing a happy tune.  Then they predict sunshine and happiness, the clouds move in, the rain begins to fall, and the birds sit in the trees with frowny beaks.  In no other profession then perhaps politics can you be so fracked up and still keep your job.

Which brings me to my point.  They are predicting storms of the apocalyptic magnitude for this area in the next couple of days.  There is a pretty good chance we may end up going out sunbathing, but in the mean time we will be battening down the hatches, filling the feeder with birdseed, pulling out our winter garments, and looking for the sunblock.

Wish us luck, we may, or may not, need it. 

Thar She Blows...Again

Yup here we are just recovering from another three and a half days of gale force winds.  She huffed and she puffed and she blew a whole shit-bucket full of trees down.  Have a gander at one of the trees that ended up horizontal...not a good position for a tree, in our yard.

Now some of you more observant people may have noticed that said tree is lying directly under the wires which run from the pole to our house.  Now you might think that said horizontal tree was shorter than the power lines and therefore posed no threat.  You would be wrong.  This particular tree had been the topic of discussion here at Kitpu Estates, off and on, for the past year, because it was rotten and not looking so well.  But because it wasn't actually on our property it wasn't handled with the typical alacrity things like this are dealt with by the hubby.  So it stood waiting for the next big wind.  It broke about a third of the way up and came a whacking down with authority.

How it missed the actual power lines is something of a mystery.  I for one think that it may have actually been a dimension hopping tree so during the actual falling part of the scenario it flickered out of existence for a brief moment thus missing the lines.  The hubby's theory, and I quote, "Fucked if I know." 

As you may also have deduced from the picture the wind/rain/warm spell also managed to melt all the snow away.  The lake even had a brief spell of having water on the ice, but as of last night it has frozen back over again.

I took the dog for a walk this afternoon and finished with a little jaunt up to the back forty to do some woodpile inspection, and yeah, you guessed it the wind blew a tiny bit of stack number one over, almost all of stack number two, and stack number three.  So guess what we get to do yet again?  Oh joy.  Lucky for me I don't really mind stacking wood all that much, it kind of reminds me of doing puzzles but on a much larger scale.