April Showers...

Bring snow. ICK. We didn't get the worst of it, but as far as I'm concerned any snow in mid-April is too much!

Yesterday I had the day off from work and my friend Donna and I went shopping in Maplewood, MN. Funny thing is, all of our purchases were made at stores we could have went to here in Eau Claire (Kohl's, JC Penney, Old Navy). Oh well. It was still a fun trip...nice to get out of town and roam a foreign mall.

Today I've just been putzing around the house. Went through a few closets and came up with a couple of bags of goodies for Goodwill. I (along with 15 million other people) went to Wal-Mart and did a little grocery shopping. As much as I don't mind it when Cait or Jason go with me, I enjoy going grocery shopping by myself. That way I can just buzz around and get what I need and not have to discuss or make sure that the husband or child are in tow.

Cait is at a birthday party/sleepover this evening until tomorrow morning. I think Jason and I are going to watch a movie..."Gone Baby Gone". Jason rented it a while back and we haven't gotten around to watching it. We better get to it before we end up owning it! :o)

Tomorrow I'll pick Cait up at 10:30 a.m. then we'll head to church from there. After that it will be home to clean the rest of the house. YAY!

Ta ta for now!

2008 Polar Plunge

Shortly before Christmas Cait brought home some information regarding the Polar Plunge--its a fundraiser for WI Special Olympics. She thought it sounded fun...so she went for it. She raised a few dollars in pledges as part of a team from Northstar Middle School. I think group together raised $4200.00. Well today was the big day. Last Sunday when I checked the 10-day forecast, it said it was going to be 40 degrees. Not too shabby. Piece of cake! I am 100% sure it said FORTY above zero. I don't think the temperature made it above zero at all, and the windchills had to be nearing the 40 below mark. When we got up this morning we were unsure of how this was all going to pan out. It turned out okay--being that the hole they cut in the ice last night was already frozen over this morning. No jumping allowed! It was kind of a bummer, but more of a relief to the moms and dads in the crowd! A few of the girls peeled off the layers and wore their original "costumes" out to the hole...most left their snowpants/jackets/hats/gloves/scarves on. As a spectator I was freezing. I don't know when or if I've ever been that cold! Good thing the sun was out. Cait is looking forward to next year...hopefully will be a little warmer and they can actually PLUNGE!

The hole:

Running to the hole to dip (Cait in the middle with the red headband-pink shirt/black shorts):
Warming up after running around in shorts and t-shirt in below zero temps:

Cold Snap!

The weatherman says today should be the last day......I sure hope so! It has been frigidly cold for days on end...days, and days, and DAYS. I guess its only been about a week, but seems like much longer. A few days we didn't get above zero at all. This a.m. was the coldest, I think. When I turned the news on at 6:30 (to see if school was running late) the temp was -19. Negative nineteen. Nineteen below zero. I should be used to it by now; I've lived in northern WI my entire life. For whatever reason I just cannot accept it. :o) I've captured the cold in a couple of pics...

This HUGE mound of ice was made of just the little bitty drips of condensation. It takes a lot of little bitty drips to make this big ol' pile. I did end up breaking it off at the ground--concerned that it would block the exhaust and make our furnace automatically shut off or something. We sure don't want that!

This is a funny story...Cait had a swimming unit in P.E. the last couple of weeks. One day last week I picked her up after school so she could bring all of her wet, smelly gym clothes home from her gym locker. Well, we forgot that they were in the trunk (because they were smelly) and ended up leaving the bag in my trunk until this afternoon. When she brought it in and dropped it on the floor it was like a huge cement block. This frozen clothes cube is made up of 3 t-shirts, a pair of shorts, a bathing suit, a beach towel, several (at least 4) pairs of socks and a bottle each of shampoo and conditioner. We ran it under hot water in the utility sink and pulled things apart before throwing them in a hot water wash!!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Yesterday afternoon/evening we got our first "real" snowfall. I haven't seen any official totals, but I'd guess it's around 5-7 inches in parts. I absolutely love the first heavy snowfall of the year. My favorite time is after the snow has ended, and its late at night when everything glows. Last night it was about 10:30 and I looked out side and just stared...it was so pretty! The snow in the backyard was so smooth and untouched...even without any outdoor lights, I could see clearly.

The not so pretty part of all of this is having to clear the snow away from the stairs, sidewalks, and driveway. Luckily, Jason ran into the daughter-in-law of our neighbor who passed away in September and she is letting us use their snowblower as long as we take care of the snow removal at his house too over the winter. Works well for both of us. She doesn't have to worry about it, and we can use a snowblower instead of shovels. His drive/sidewalks aren't as big as ours (ours aren't huge either), so it won't be too much of a hassle.

Today I cleaned, and I'm getting ready to pack up all of the fall decorations and get out my snowmen! I'm not quite ready for Christmas stuff yet...I'll wait and do that when we get our tree. But my snowmen can come out, and they'll stay until spring.