A Man Moment in the Snow

Our tale begins at 4:30 am. Bookworm was unable to sleep. Apparently she was so excited about her dollhouse, she couldn't sleep. I told her to go to bed and read. Did I mention that it also happened to be the exact time that the storm hit? The windows were rattling. The rain was pelting the windows...



At 5:30 am Popcorn woke up. She thought she heard somebody knocking and she thought she saw a head in her window. I went and laid down with her.

At 6am I gave up convincing her to sleep and went to take a hot bath while Studmuffin took his shower. We already had the news on. The current temperature was 34 degrees. The rain/snow/sleet combo we have been expecting all week was expected to hit any time. Any travel at all was discouraged.


Studmuffin left for work. After all, the roads were clear. He planned to be home by 9am. I tried to explain that I still had "stuff" to do. I would not be ready to leave by 9am. I would not be through with laundry by 9am. We have very few clothes, and I had stayed up until midnight to get the girls clothes out of the dryer and folded to pack. My clothes were currently in the washer. I had cookies to frost. I had baked about 6 dozen sugar cookies the day before, along with 6 loaves of banana bread and 6 dozen ginger cookies. Icing sugar cookies got put off until this morning. I had planned on our original departure time of around noon. Studmuffin does not understand that I plan my preparations for departure until the last minute....

At 8 am I called him at work to make sure he arrived safely. "Sure! I should be ready to leave in a few minutes. Do you have everything loaded?" Remember, Studmuffin had shoulder surgery. He is not able to use his right arm except for passive motion, except to write, type, etc. You get it, lightweight stuff.

"Are you sure we should go? The news says any traffic going west on I40 will be hazardous. They are discouraging all travel if possible." The temperature was now 24 degrees.

Fast forward to 9:30am. Studmuffin is supervising me packing our bags and gifts into trash bags and the cargo bag for our trip to his parents. He had decided we should take his pickup, so we could load everything in back, then have us and the dogs up front. He looks at me as I struggled with the zipper to the cargo bag, "Any time you think this trip is dangerous and foolish let me know."

I froze.

Wait a minute....

Didn't we discuss this last night? And before he left for work this morning at 6:30? And when I called him at 8am?

We headed out at about 10 am.....


At 11am we had reached a town that is typically 30 minutes away. The visibility was 20 yards at most, with blowing snow and icy roads. Studmuffin decided it was time to turn around...

I was relieved.

Until I got home and realized I hadn't bought any food for the last week because we were leaving for 4 days today...

I climbed into my car and headed to Walmart. I arrived with little difficulty and got my necessities...

At 1pm, I walked into the parking lot to see...Nothing.

Nothing but blowing snow and huddled bodies, and cars slipping and sliding around the parking lot. The first thing I did was get my cart stuck in a drift 2 feet out of the door. I went around to the front and drug it out. Not one person who was fortunate to have a spouse pull their car to the entrance offered me assistance to unstick my cart...Is that a word?

Anyhoo, I started out in the parking lot. Where my cart got stuck in 2 more drifts, and finally a man with a ski mask and coveralls helped me get my cart to the car with him pulling the front and me pushing from the back. See, those horror movies about men in ski masks aren't all right!

I hopped in my car to get it warming, and start defrosting as I unloaded my groceries. By the time I was finished my hands were killing me (I had forgotten gloves...Derrr). I pulled out of Walmart to see a tow truck operator pulling a truck out of the ditch on the entrance ramp to the freeway. I didn't actually need on the freeway, I only had to stay in the right lane to get on then right back off to head home. Good thing. The interstate was shut down going south.

After creeping down the road and seeing 6 cars in the ditch, I finally arrived at my street with blinding blowing snow, and barely made the corner... I eased down our street and noticed my neighbor digging his drifted car out to go heaven only knows where...

I pulled into the driveway and cringed when I noticed Studmuffin had parked in his normal spot: Right next to the garage door. I crept towards the garage, where a 1-2 foot drift had formed. Of course, there was solid ice under it, and I felt the car start to slip. I cautiously stopped to avoid hitting the house or Studmuffin's truck...

I got stuck.

I drove past 6 cars stuck in the ditch on my way home and prayed aloud for safety and for God to get me home, to get stuck 2 feet from my garage door. I started laughing...

Studmuffin started griping. Apparently I shouldn't have EVER stopped in a drift. Regardless of my slipping tires that were heading me straight for the house...

He grabbed a shovel and proceeded to have a tantrum trying to dig out the car...

Remember the shoulder?

He ignored all pleas to stop...

I decided that sometimes men are idiots, and may have let the word slip past my lips as I began to unload the car... While he would get in, spin his wheels in reverse and forward, then begin to dig again, slamming his shovel against the ground every few swipes, supposedly to break ice loose...I suspect it was to vent anger....

Remember the shoulder?

He asked me if I was finished with the groceries. I said "No. But all that's left is cat food and dog food, and you can't lift that." I picked up the 40 pound bag of food and stumbled into the garage with it... I dropped it on the floor and once again demanded....Errr, excuse me, asked in my most meek and submissive voice why the car couldn't stay where it was...

"Because we will never be able to move it again!!!" Editors note: Studmuffin protests this sentence. But the author is very certain that he said if the car did not get unstuck TODAY, it would never be moved again. He says it's out of context, I say it's an accurate account of today's events... The word idiot may have slipped past my lips again.

In a moment of irritation, Studmuffin picked up the bag of dog food and flung it to the side of the garage. I think the word tumbled out unexpectedly once again...

Remember his shoulder? Remember the dog food bag was 40 pounds?

Studmuffin insisted that he could push me out of the drift...I argued, and I hate to admit it, but idiot may have been in the phrasing of my ultra submissive, meek, mild monologue, and he started to dig again...I relented. He started out in the back. I simply spun my wheels, and prayed that when I broke loose I wouldn't skid out of control and into the house...

Pushing from back was unsuccessful.

He moved to the front...

It worked!

Only, he slipped on the ice and fell down. I panicked and slammed the car into park, and it rolled slightly forward as I jumped out to check him. The car hit him in the head as he was standing up and knocked him back down...

Remember his shoulder?

He insisted he was okay...

And I pulled the car into the garage...

Simple as you please!

Studmuffin is currently sitting on the couch watching the gold bikini episode of Star Wars to salve his wounded pride and aching shoulder...Which he insists is fine, because he never raised it above his shoulder...

But he's wearing his brace, so take from that what you will.

Idiot...

Oops! Did I just say that out loud?

Winter Fun

As many of you know, we had an ice storm a few weeks ago. Bookworm and I built this seal. You see, it wasn't snow, just inches and inches of ice with a little snow peppered in here and there. The day it started to thaw, we worked quickly to form this little cutie. And for anyone who doesn't remember, Bookworm hates the sun in her eyes, so we settled for a closed eye shot to document her creation.
Kelsey was put to work. I had the girls hold one leash and I lead her with the other and she easily pulled them on the ice. This shot is on an old box, but we ended up using a laundry basket and it seemed to work the very best. And, for any animal rights activists, we did this just a few times because I was afraid it would hurt her neck. I'm totally considering a harness for next year. The dog really didn't seem to mind as long as she was pleasing me, and the kids loved it!
Of course, the puppy tended to get in the way. I scolded her twice for getting in the way, and the third time I scolded her, Kelsey took discipline into her own hands. Holly stayed out of the way after that!
Believe it or not, the pool floaty was the best sled we had. Of course we didn't have a sled, so we were making do with whatever we could find. Unfortunately the floaty only lasted about 30 minutes before it popped. You'd expect more from a dollar store floaty!
Yep, Holly stayed out of our sled dog's way....But she still ran around like a maniac the rest of the time....And most of that time she had Popcorn's stocking cap in her mouth!

Holly update: She is not house trained. She stays outside. She does come in the garage to eat, so I can be sure she gets to eat. She is actually well mannered. She sits politely while you scoop her food, and then doesn't actually eat until you scratch her, then tell her to eat. Then, when she's done eating, she sits at your feet with her head cocked to the side, waiting expectantly for her scratch behind the ears! Yep, she's turned out better, so far, than I expected. I think having an older dog who is well mannered helps. Also, it helps that we refuse to pet her if she's running and jumping all over the place. So, all in all, she's pretty good for a bird dog. But, she does have that unfortunate "bird dog" smell. Oh well, I guess I can't have everything!Holly showing her good manners while she waits to be let out of the garage.

Kelsey, wondering why anyone would be even remotely interested in a pesky puppy when she is obviously more trustworthy and better mannered! Quite frankly, she's disgusted by the whole thing.

Good Morning Sunshine

We had an ice storm here in Oklahoma this week. These pictures may look like snow on the ground, but it was actually about 3 inches of sleet accumulated. We were thankful it came down as sleet, not rain, because that meant there were very few power outages.

I headed to work yesterday morning. I left with plenty of extra time to account for icy roads. I made Studmuffin back me out of the driveway. I was afraid I'd slide into our mailbox or one of the neighbors. Imagine my surprise when I say THIS at the end of my driveway at 6:15 yesterday morning.

I was not a happy camper. To be honest, I was blaming it on the kids next door. Our neighbors to the East have two cute teenage girls. I figured some boys had came to see them the night before, crashed into my box, and drove off in a teenage "let's get outta here before someone sees us!" moment.

We started investigating right away. Studmuffin had alerted our local police department, who said it was probably a teenager who panicked and drove off, but we'd never be able to prove it....So....

Studmuffin began investigating. He found pieces of red plastic from a bumper. We have a friend that's a CSI. We figure he can run the pieces through their fancy computer system and learn the make, model, and year of the vehicle. That's what happens on TV. Surely that's art imitating life, right? Plus, mailboxes are property of the USPS, and destroying them is actually a federal offense, right? I'm sure our local CSI is very interested in catching the perps.

Agent Studmuffin interviewed every neighbor. Nobody saw anything, except....

The girls I was blaming for the accident! They were watching TV with their parents, heard a crash, went outside, and saw a man get out of a red pickup, look at the mailbox, jump in, and speed away. I can vouch for the speeding away part because even in the dark you could see his skid marks in the ice on our street. Our second clue! The perp drives a pickup! And, the story confirms our evidence thus far...The vehicle was red! We are getting closer and closer to a suspect...




So, I take back my accusations to these poor innocents, who were originally deemed guilty on the sole basis of being teenagers. They actually helped our investigation! Granted, one said he backed into it, the other said he hit it head on...But we expect these things in the crime business. You get 20 witnesses, they will give you 20 stories. We look for the common thread to piece our investigation together....

So, if anyone in our area sees a suspicious looking man in a red pick up that has either a front or back torn up bumper, please contact this blogger immediately! A reward of chocolate chip cookies will be given to anyone who has information leading to the perpetrator of this federal offense.

I'll keep you posted on the crime scene, and update you about the progress of our investigation. Special Agent Andi, signing off for now.