Thursday, January 22, 2026

Thursday: Snow day #3

Well, I woke up to a phone call at 5:45am saying school was canceled for the day!  I did some of my work at home in the morning and by the time I went in to work the roads were fine.  I've heard it was much worse in other places though, especially if there was any wind.  The snow is light and fluffy and blows easily.

Isaac's math class was completely canceled too, which is rather exciting.  I assume the kids did fine home alone today - the chores were finished by the time I got home and no one seemed to be going too crazy.  Isaac and I went rock climbing for a little bit and Joshua had piano, so everyone was able to get out of the house.

I've been expecting a snow day on Friday for the last week.  Everyone has been expecting a snow day on Friday - we had a meeting with a school admin scheduled for tomorrow that was moved around noon because we all expected the snow day.  Then 5:30 rolled around - no announcement from any local schools.  6:00.  7:00.  7:30.  Were they really going to make us wait until the morning?  Finally at 7:40 the notification came through that there is no school tomorrow either.  It'll be too cold and, if possible, people are hunkering down.

Wednesday, January 21, 2026

Wednesday: snow day

We did end up with a snow day today!  I had to go out several times today and the roads really weren't very good.  They also seemed to be worse this evening as they were icy near intersections.  I'm expecting school tomorrow (and most forecasts say a low chance of a closure), but wouldn't be overly surprised if there isn't school.  I don't think anyone is expecting school on Friday due to cold, so it'll be a really short week.

Anyway, Ben stayed home so that was nice.  I had an easier day than otherwise, but still had work and errands that needed to be done.  

One errand included a vet appointment, and it seemed like this vet was telling me very different things than previous vets.  Last year Horizon's weight had stayed the same and the vet was happy enough with that.  This year he lost a little (very little) weight and the vet was quite sure that he needed to lose quite a bit of weight.  We also have a cat that regularly throws up.  We mention it every year, and have tried a few things to combat it but nothing seems to change.  In the past it has just been ok.  This year she was very worried about it.  She wanted the cats to have a complete blood panel workup and said that she suggests doing this every year with older cats...which would over triple today's vet bill.  Um...no.  She also suggested a few other things to change that involve buying some products, but at $30 it might be something we do.  So after this annoying appointment I got home and the plow had gone through and I was rather grumpy.

I did enjoy Joshua's message to me on his math work from yesterday though.  I read somewhere that adults killed 6-7, and I'm not sad about it.  (Please ignore the wrong answer.)

Tuesday, January 20, 2026

Tuesday: snow day (#1?)

One of the kids' chores today was to shovel the end of the driveway after the plow came through.  So what happens?  The plow came through at 7am and I was able snow blow it away.  It was still light and fluffy so it worked well.  The kids went sledding after I got home from work, so they still got outside even though it's rather cold.

I got a text with this picture while at work.  The kids didn't get into too many shenanigans, but definitely some.


I'm really tired.

There's a high chance of a snow day tomorrow.  I personally think there's a high chance on Friday too.  We'll see!

Monday, January 19, 2026

Monday: snow storm

It was an interesting snow storm today.

The kids had ortho appointments this morning.  I was a bit annoyed at myself for making the appointments, but in a non-snowstorm it would have been the right choice.  Anyway, based on appointment times and whatnot I expected to be there for about 1.5hrs.

Twenty minutes later, we were leaving.  They got both kids in at the same time and Isaac's appointment didn't take an hour as I was told.  It was rather exciting.

The roads weren't as bad as I thought, but there weren't many people out.  There was one gust of wind that caused very white out conditions, but it passed quickly.  (The highways were much, much worse.  Due to accidents, they were closed for a significant portion of the day.)

The original plan had been to have Ben take my car to work after the ortho appointments, but he managed to move all of his meetings on-line.  Most people took the "do not travel" advisory seriously and worked from home.

At 5pm, all the local schools EXCEPT OURS had been canceled.  It's a situation where you know the school will cancel, but they haven't yet.  What if they decide not to!?!  They did cancel.  Phew.

The day as a whole was nice.  The kids played some, read some, worked some.  I actually got many of my normal chores completed since the kids were well occupied.

I made naan for dinner, but didn't decide to do so until 3pm.  Usually I take Brad out of the refrigerator in the morning so it has some time to wake up.  Instead I made the naan dough and had it cuddle between Isaac's legs and under some blankets to warm up just a little.  I didn't need it to warm up much, but sitting on the counter would be cold.






Sunday: snow

We're in the middle of a snow storm!  The kids already didn't have school tomorrow, but most schools are closed.  We do have some ortho appointments in the morning.  I have a small hope that they'll cancel the appointments, but I kind of doubt it.

Saturday, January 17, 2026

Saturday: breakfast

I went to Grandville for breakfast with a friend this morning.  The roads were....not great.  We had even talked yesterday that we'd decide at the last minute, but thought that everything would be ok.  It wasn't.  ...but at the same time,  we got there and back ok.  This was my fourth meal with friends this week - a huge change from last week when I didn't eat with anyone.  

Friday, January 16, 2026

Friday

After a lovely breakfast with a friend, I started Operation: Clean the House - entry closet.  I'm really excited about a little space for once.  I cleaned the top two shelves.

I am getting rid of the puppy hat.  Joshua was so small and cute.

Ben and Isaac went to a magic thing.  Their normal place closed, so they were going to a place that was farther away and earlier, so they didn't have dinner with us.  Joshua and I had pasta - tonight's shape was elbows.


Our grad school friends met on-line in the evening in our bi-weekly meet up.  My computer would not behave.  Either I could hear but not talk or talk but not hear or it was on my phone which is not ideal.  I tried several different things and made a lot of annoyed faces and finally gave up and didn't use headphones.  Ben came home and gave me a kid's pair of corded headphones which worked but they were not very comfortable.  We'll get it fixed later, but at least there were some solutions.

Oh!  I also found a picture of Isaac on the school Facebook site.  It looks like he's having a lot of fun, but he did not tell me about it after school.