April (frozen) Showers

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I don't know about your calendar, but mine says April 6th. I could swear that I even saw a little square on the calendar way back in March that said, "First Day of Spring." This? This was my Monday morning wake-up call.

Schools in the area are on delayed opening schedules (not Cam's - whew!). The White Sox had to cancel opening day festivities (the Cubs - fortunately - are playing in Houston). A snow day in April??

Yes, I realize that I live in the Midwest, but when I left Minnesota and moved "south" I was certain April showers would be liquid, not frozen.

I suppose I shouldn't complain too much - next month we'll be smack dab in the middle of tornado season and I'll posting from my basement while sirens blare ...

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Spring and other Stuff

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NOTE: I'm looking for some help with a reader issue I'm having (i.e. my more recent posts not showing up in any reader). I've posted a question on the blogger help forum, but we all know how those things go. In a nutshell, I was having some conflicts with html that "magically" appeared in my blog and incompatibilities with FeedBurner, so deleted the RSS feed from FeedBurner and yet updates are still not appearing in any reader. I'm not html savvy (AT.ALL) so am completely lost on how to fix this.

WOOHOO!! Seems this has been corrected. A special thanks to those of you who offered your help. I never cease to be amazed by the camaraderie of bloggers and their willingness to offer a helping hand when someone is an idiot in a bind. Y'all are the best!

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We've had a long winter in northern Illinois this year. It was COLD ... very COLD ... for a very LONG time. We had snow early in the season that stayed until early March. When we finally hit spring on the calendar, I was hopeful I'd start to see buds on the trees and the green tips of daffodils and tulips starting to peak out from hibernation. Ha!

Sunday morning I woke up to this ...

It was quite beautiful - almost like viewing the world through a pair of B & W glasses - but also caused a bit of damage. We started with freezing rain Saturday night. Add 7" of heavy, wet snow and branches begin snapping under the pressure.

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Cam is back to school this week. Unfortunately, his spring break wasn't what he had hoped it would be. An impulsive decision on Tuesday to dig through husband's desk to find the "hidden" PS3 controllers and the unexpected, early return of husband from work resulted in the loss of his cell phone - and the home phone - for the remainder of the week.

Actually, this situation could have been entirely avoided. Husband decided to purchase a PS3 for the "family," yet declared it was his. This declaration meant "No one is to play my PS3 without asking me first" but never were those words spoken. Not only that, but he hooked it up to the TV in the living room - talk about constant temptation. When you've got a 13-year old who is expert at finding loop-holes, clarity and common sense in parenting are critical.

Of course, I could have overridden the punishment (husband and I recently agreed that all discipline would be discussed between us prior to implementation), but the bottom line is that Cam walked into husband's office and rifled through his desk to find the controllers. Impulsivity issues or not, Cam knows the expectations of privacy in our home and his decision to compromise those expectations was unacceptable.

Personally? I think my choice of punishment would have been to go through Cam's desk while he sat on his bed and watched. Something tells me the feeling of having his privacy violated might have provided a much more useful lesson!

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Those of you who read me regularly will notice my HNT archive is "missing". It's in the process of being moved to a separate blog - one that allows me to block access to those who find it so terribly disgusting and offensive, but can't seem to delete that bookmark from their computer or keep their fingers from typing in the blog address. It seems 13 year olds aren't the only ones with obsession impulse control issues.

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Randomness

Can you see that?? It's SNOW ... on April 12th, just 2 weeks away from opening day of little league season. Note the tree. Do you see a single bud even attempting to open yet? Didn't spring start a couple of weeks ago??

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It's been an interesting week on my blog - high highs and low lows. I got this award from Leighann:

She wrote: Next the award goes to, my pal and every one's favorite Half Nekkid Thursday-er, Dana. She makes me think when I need to, even though I don't want to. Damn her.

I don't know about the favorite Half Nekkid Thursday-er part, but I know there are many people who want to DAMN me *giggle* Speaking of which ...

Seems there are those who believe I am an [QUOTE REMOVED AT THE REQUEST OF THE SENDER - I had edited some "identifying" information from that sentence that appeared in the email and the person who wrote it feels she was misrepresented] Don't visit my blog comes to mind. Come on people, if you don't like what I post, go somewhere else! That First Amendment right goes both ways!

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Finally, I also wanted to do a quick follow-up on my Autism post. Any of you who have kids with disabilities "non-traditional" kids have likely seen this, but for those of you who don't, this piece does better than anything I've ever read explaining what it is like being the parent to one of these amazing kids.

A Trip to Holland

By Emily Perl Kingsley, 1987. All rights reserved.

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away...because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss. But...if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

Stuck with the Fighting Irish

Have I ever mentioned how much I enjoy traveling during the winter? Currently, I am sitting in the "Business Center" of a Comfort Suites Hotel in South Bend, IN wondering if I'll be able to make the 180 mile westward trek home sometime today. Here is the current radar screen

I am hoping that by checkout time (11AM) the snow will have stopped and I'll at least be able to see the tollway to make it home. Yesterday afternoon, I hopped in the car and drove to the tollway assuming all would be well. The roads weren't too bad (bare and wet - like some of you like your women *giggle*), but there was no visibility. I turned around and decided my son and I were much safer staying in a hotel for another night.

I took a peek out the window this morning and today isn't looking terribly promising either, but if I can make it out of the unplowed parking lot, I might be OK. Fortunately, I'm quite comfortable driving in the snow - seven years of Minnesota winters will do that for you!

I'm taking bets on how long the normally 2.5 hour trip will take this afternoon. Anyone up for an informal poll?

**UPDATE**UPDATE**UPDATE**

Ahhhh ... good old best intentions ...

It just seemed 11AM was far too late to leave. Yes, it was still snowing in South Bend - yes, the weather report indicated that there were significant lake effect snows just west of South Bend in La Porte - but I am Dana, Princess of Power, and none of those things mattered - I wanted to head home and head home I did!

We left at 8:37AM. It was still snowing big giant flakes, but I could see the tollway was moving at a decent pace. I should have known there would be trouble when I turned to get on the tollway and the on-ramp had not yet been plowed.

As I do when the weather gets a bit dicey, I tucked myself behind a semi-truck once I got on the tollway. He seemed to be driving a bit conservatively which, considering the weather, seemed quite appropriate. The first 10 miles of the trip weren't bad. Only the right hand lane was relatively clear, but we were maintaining a 50-60 mph speed. Then all hell broke lose.

About 10 miles outside of La Porte the snow started to really come down. I knew this was where the lake effect snows were, so I wasn't surprised. What did surprise me was the fact that just as quickly as the snow started coming down, the road and visibility went to shit. I could not tell where the road was and the only thing I could see in front of me were the back lights of the semi-truck. At speeds averaging 25 mph, this is what I could see (no, I didn't snap a pic while driving, this was one I found on-line that was close to the conditions today, but not quite as bad)

After about 20 minutes of nail-biting, "Ah Shit!" driving, we did make it through. I felt like a lemming, knowing if the semi drove off the road, into a ditch, I'd be following him right on in. I am an experienced winter driver and these were the worse conditions I've ever seen.

Just as quickly as the snow started, it stopped. Once we got to the west side of La Porte, the skies were bright blue and sunny. It was the strangest thing. The rest of the trip was uneventful and we pulled into the garage at 11:42, 3 HOURS AND 5 MINUTES from the time we left South Bend.

There's no place like home ... there's no place like home ...

Ice, Ice, Baby ...

This is what dumped on northwestern Illinois last night, and continues to dump as I type ...

Although beautiful, the 1/2" of ice is wrecking havoc. My driveway can now be used as an ice hockey rink and only warm water would allow me access to my car door. Schools are closed (at the last minute - just 25 minutes before the bus was due) and my 11 yo is driving me insane with his "bordom." Not quite sure why he doesn't appreciate my ideas to keep him busy - cleaning bathrooms, vacuuming - these are things that keep me from being bored, but it seems he'd rather spend his time on Club Penguin. He's cleaning bathrooms now *evil mom grin*