If We Were Having Coffee….BRRRR!

If we were having coffee today you would want it extra hot, extra large and with a side of thick socks! Here in the Northeastern U.S. we are in the middle of a record breaking cold front.  Anyone remember that movie “The Day After Tomorrow” with Jake Gyllenhaal?  Well, if New York Harbor freezes solid, I’m moving to Mexico.

Any-hoo, if we were having coffee, I would whisk you on in out of the frozen tundra and offer you a seat.  Santa brought me a new Keurig machine and the Elves threw in a few dozen coffee and hot chocolate pods so I’m confident we can find something to warm you up. I’ll be having a nice strong French roast served in the nifty Hollywood mug I got on vacation.  Sorry, you’ll have to use a less cool mug but I promise to fill it all the way to the top while you fill me in on your week.

So tell me, are you happy with 2018 so far?  Planning on watching the Golden Globes tonight? Read any good books or seen any good films? Going on an interesting vacation? Enjoying temperatures above freezing in your end of the world?

Sorry, I’ll stop harping on the crappy weather.  It’s just that I’m a summer girl at heart and all this ice and snow is seriously messing with my mood.  Good thing I wrote my “January To-Do List” last week.  It’s the only thing that’s been keeping me going.  Ive gotten a good start on it thanks to the weird week we’ve had work wise.  After being off for Christmas break, we had school on Tuesday and Wednesday and then were closed on Thursday and Friday due to the snow and ice.  Now, I could certainly get used to working two days then having a four day weekend but I don’t think we can managed the required 180 school days per year that way!

Well, my plan today is to start packing away my Christmas decorations so I suppose I should get started.   You’re lucky that we aren’t really having coffee because I might enlist your help.  Although, in this house we’ll be going from green and red decoration to green and silver thanks to all the Philadelphia Eagles signs and flags my hubby had spread all over the house!  I’m not complaining though because we’ve been devoted fans forever and have routed for the Eagles through out some pretty crappy seasons so the fact that they had such a great season and made the playoffs is a pretty big deal around here.  Plus, even if he is injured and will be unable to play, Miss Dee had a serious crush on Carson Wentz. 🙂

Before I get to work though,  I wanted to mention something very sad that happened while I was away from the blogosphere. This September we lost our handsome boy Jack. We rushed him to the emergency vet after he started having trouble breathing and a tumor was found growing next to his heart, pressing on it. We were fortunate to have had a chance to say goodbye and tell him how much we loved him before the doctor sent him off to sleep.  He was our friend for 13 years and all of us, including his sister Chrissy who now walks around meowing, in search of him, miss him terribly. Jack continues to be a presence all over my blog but in remembrance, I’d like to close this post with some of my favorite moments with him…

Thanks so much for stopping by.  I hope you have a great week!

Many thanks to “Eclectic Allie” for hosting the Weekend Coffee Share. Stop by and check out the rest of the posts.

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If We Were Having Coffee…1/8/17

If we were having coffee…I would thank you for slogging through the snow in order to come visit me today! I’d usher you in and help you off with your boots and mittens and immediately thrust a mug of something hot into your fridgid paws. You would have noticed already that here in southern New Jersey we have collected three or four inches of snow and that the tempeture outside is hovering around freezing.  Brrrr! Let’s just stay indoors with our coffee (or tea or hot chocolate) and a selection of fresh baked cookies (courtesy of my hubby) and have a nice long chat.

If we were having coffee…I would ask you how your week has been? What is the weather like at your home. I have a retired colleague who is spending this week in Jamacia. She keeps posting photos of her and her husband on the beach or at the beachside bar. Meanwhile I’m looking out my window at squirrels digging through the snow for food! I may have to block her posts till spring. 😊

You would probably guess that I’m not much of a cold weather person. I tend to hibernate, curling up with a book or my iPad and ignoring the outside world (and anything productive I might be doing). Yesterday I did manage to take down all my Christmas decorations. I felt the pressure to get it done while Miss Dee was at work because she doesn’t take the whole “undecorating” thing very well. The idea of Christmas being over tends to make her wimper a bit and immediately go into denial, so my mother-in-law (who is now getting around quite well with her walker and expects the doctor to give her the all clear to move to a cane tomorrow) packed it all up and put it away while she was gone. Everything but the tree. I’m not ready to give that up quite yet. It is still looking pretty and fresh and losing hardly any needles so I’m keeping it till next weekend. Besides, look how pretty it looked next to the backdrop of snow yesterday…

If we were having coffee…I would tell you that we had a bit of a scare last night. Mr D called to tell us that on his way home, his car had been side swiped by a hit and run driver who had been swerving all over the road! Thank goodness he and his passengers were unhurt and that the car has only minor damage. He was able to pull in to a parking lot and call the police. A witness in a pick up truck was clever enough to follow the other car home and came back while Mr D was talking with the police to tell them right where they could find him. As it turned out, the other driver had been drinking! Could we BE anymore stupid?! “Hey, let’s have a few drinks then go drive on the snow covered roads!!!” That other young man better hope he and I never meet or he is going to get a very large and angry piece of my mind.  It is  certainly unnerving to be reminded how vulnerable our children are when they are out in the world.

If we were having coffee…we would probably notice the sound of the snowblower down the street and realize that other people (including my husband who ducked out a few minutes ago), have gotten on with their Sunday while we’ve been chatting. I suppose I should as well so, although I hate to hurry you out, I must wash the mugs and get myself moving. Thanks so much for coming by if you are still in the mood to chat there are lots of other wonderful folks sharing coffee and conversation. Stop by and visit.

The Weekend Coffee Share is hosted each week by the lovely Diana at Partime Monster.

The Weekly Smile #8 -Melting My Heart

Last month after Mother Nature dumped a foot of snow on our neighborhood, a family up the street built the biggest snowman I have ever seen. To give you an idea of scale, his arms were old fence post and his nose was a small orange safety cone. The creators also used big stick and branches to give the snowman cool spikey hair. It was certainly a sight to see – twelve foot tall, filling most of the front yard. Everytime I passed him on the way to work it made me smile.

The weeks went by and the snow slowly started to melt. My snowman friend melted too but each time his face and arms slid out of their location, the builder put them back, restoring his happy grin. He got shorter, and shorter. Even after all the other snow was gone, he lived on, short and flat, still sporting his spikey hair and crazy arms. The effort the builder put into maintaining the snowman’s personality made me smile too.

By last week, he was looking like this….

This morning, after a weekend of temperatures in the 50s and a day of rain, I drove by and saw that the snowman had finally melted away. All that was left in the center of the yard was a pile of wood and a orange traffic cone.

I missed my frozen friend, of course, but his absence meant that the weather might finally be warming up and for a summer girl like me, that is definitely something to smile about.😊

This post is part of The Weekly Smile brought to you courtesy of Trent’s World. Stop by to check out the rest of the smiles or to leave one of your own!

 

 

If We Were Having Coffee…1/6/15

If we were having coffee…I would welcome you in from the cold and pour you something hot to drink. We have French Vanilla tea and various flavors of hot chocolate. My tastes are pretty basic  so I would be having a some nice strong coffee which I am always happy to share.

The weather here in NJ is looking up. A surprise snow system passed through early Friday. We awoke to a few inches of heavy wet snow covering the grass and cars. Luckily, because the temperature had been warmer earlier in the week, the streets stayed clear. By yesterday it was all melted, and today, although the air is crisp and cold, the sky is a beautiful blue.

If we were having coffee…I would ask about your week? If it’s cold in your area, have you been staying indoors, hybernating, or do you enjoy winter activities like skiing and cold weather hiking? My Hubby is a skier. He is planning a trip to Vermont with his ski club in a few weeks. I hope the conditions are good. He has only gotten to go once so far this winter and there may not be many more chances. The Poconos Mountains in Pennsylvania are a much closer drive but he likes the slopes in Vermont better. I wouldn’t know. Strapping boards to my feet and jumping off a mountain has never seemed like a good idea for someone as clumsy as me. Plus, I hate the cold.

Many years ago, before I was married, I went on a ski trip with a group of friends. It was a really beautiful area and we rented a nice townhouse with a fire place that looked out over a frozen lake. Everyone skied except for me and another girl named Sue so we spent the day ice skating on the lake, building snowmen and taking photos of the landscape. Then we went back to the house, built a fire and ate snacks and watched movies till everyone else got back. It was the best non-skiing, ski trip ever! ☃

If we were having coffee…I would tell you that Jack had his yearly check up this week. He is never very happy about being stuck in a carrier and having to ride in the car. I’m glad it’s a short drive because he told me, quite instantly, how unhappy he was the whole way there!!!!😳 I am happy to report, however, that he was very well behaved once we arrived. Of course all of the ladies at the vet made a big fuss over him, telling him what a handsome fellow he was.

He lost a pound which is a good thing, and the doctor gave him his rabies vaccine and another shot to help with his skin issues. This time of year, the dry heat seems to make him itch and he ends up pulling out big patches of hair. The medicine she gives him usually clears it up. I’m glad because he is looking considerable less handsome with big chunks of hair missing and I’m getting very tired of vacuuming up pieces of him from all over the house!

To Jack and Chrissy, weekends mean a bowl of cream for breakfast!

If we were having coffee…you would notice that I’m a bit of a geek because one of the high points of my week was the new table I got for my classroom. The cool part is that it’s a dry erase table! That means the students can write on it with markers and it wipes right off. It’s great for working out math problems or practicing spelling words. The kids think it’s really cool too! I’m hoping it will make them love practicing their multiplication tables but I won’t get my hopes up!

If we were having coffee….I would mention that the Weekend Coffee Share is brought to you courtesy of Diana at Part Time Monster. Don’t forget to drop by and check out the rest of the posts! 

Have a great week. Thanks for stopping by!!

The Weekly Smile #4….Snow Day

My smile this week comes courtesy of the snow, which is rather surprising because I didn’t find it a bit funny when it was coming down!

Saturday’s blizzard covered our area in about a foot of the white stuff. That, of course, meant that my husband and I spent most of Sunday morning digging out our cars. Anyone who has done this knows that it is not a fun way to spend your time. I was exhausted and cranky.

As we were finishing up, though, my inner child took over and I couldn’t resist pitching a snowball straight at my Hubby’s back. Unfortunately, my inner child’s aim is as bad as my outer adult’s so I missed by at least two feet. Naturally, he felt he needed to retaliate. His aim is spot on. Things escalated quickly from there and snow started flying everywhere.  Soon we were both covered and I had fallen backwards into a five foot drift! Hubby tried to pull me out, but I slipped backward again taking him down with me. We were both laughing so hard, I had tears running down my frozen cheeks!

The neighbor’s probably thought we were crazy but I didn’t care. I didn’t even mind the frozen toes or the wet bottom because it felt really good to remember what it was like back when snow days were actually fun, back before we had to worry about stuff like digging out the cars and shoveling the walks.

Next time, maybe we should try building a snowman.😊☃

Don’t forget to visit Trent’s World so you can check out the rest of the Weekly Smiles!

If We Were Having Coffee….1/23/16

If we were having coffee today…this would be the “view from the porch”…

Yup, pretty much the same as the rest of the Northeastern United States! We’re actually better off here than in the shore towns, because they’re dealing with a blizzard and major flooding. I’ve also been sending out prayers for those who don’t have the luxury of staying home – the medical personnel, the plow operators and people like my neighbor, Walt, who owns a heating and air conditioning business. I saw him digging out his car early this morning, probably off to rescue someone who lost their heat. I think this might finally be the year his wife talks him into retiring!

So today I am feeling very fortunate to be tucked away warm and safe.

Come in. Let’s curl up with a steamy cup of coffee, tea or hot chocolate, what ever you like! I have a feeling you’ll be staying a while. Naturally, the Hubby has prepared us for the storm by baking brownies and chocolate chip cookies. That’s his idea of a survival kit…God bless his little heart!😊

If we were having coffee…I would ask about your week. I hope you, too, have been safe from the elements wherever you are. Has it been a fun week? A productive week? A difficult one?

Our week has been pretty routine. Miss Dee started her new job and seems to be enjoying it. Mr D started classes again and spent the week complaining. He ended up with mostly evening classes this semester, which wouldn’t be a bad thing since he functions much better in the PM hours, except that he also has one morning class. That means he still has to get up early every day and then has the whole middle of the day with nothing to do unless he is scheduled to work. This, boys and girls, is what happens when you don’t take the time to meet with your college advisor and end up having to schedule classes on your own, last minute. Oh well. Live and learn!

If we were having coffee…I would tell you that my brother found out this week that he is going to be a great-grandfather in October. I don’t know how  how he feels about it yet, but it sure, makes ME feel old! He is eight years older than me and he and his daughter each became parents quite young but the idea that my nieces son (who is the same age as my son) is going to be a father soon kind of makes my head spin. Obviously, even though they are only two months apart in age, he and Mr D are in very different places in their lives. When told about his (second?) cousin’s impending fatherhood I saw a shiver of horror actually move down his spine! I’m okay with that. Grandchildren can be a dream for the future.

If we were having coffee…you would notice that Hubby is piling on the layers and heading out to “move some snow around.” He isn’t much good at the whole hybernation thing. Not me. I’ve stocked up on books and art supplies. As long as the power stays on and there is coffee left to brew I’ll be just fine.

Feel free to curl up hang out, but if you do feel the need to venture into the world, I wish you safe travel. Thanks for stopping by

This post is part of the Weekend Coffee Share brought to you courtesy of Diana at Part Time Monster. Stop by and check out all the coffee share posts!

Christmas Postathon Day 22

Here we are in the home stretch! Can’t believe Christmas is just days away and I’ve managed to post (almost) everyday! 😊

White Christmas or Green Christmas?

Christmas is Christmas no matter the weather but I’m a white Christmas kind of girl. I’m sure if I’d grown up in Southern California instead of Southern New Jersey I would prefer warm holiday weather.  All though,  my sister-in-law did grow up in Southern California (in fact she attended Hollywood High) and since living on the east coast she said she could never go back to having a green Christmas.

I don’t like cold weather in general but there is something about snow fall on Christmas Eve that brings such peace and beauty to the holiday. It’s almost like the world is bejeweled!

For the past few weeks, the weather here has been unseasonably warm. The weather men are predicting 68 degree weather for the 25th so it doesn’t look like a white Christmas this year but I guess you never know. I’m hoping for a little Christmas magic.☺️

Here of a few of Miss Dee’s snow photos…

 

Snow Day Dilemma

When I was a kid, snow days were like a gift from the weather gods. I’d eat cereal and watch cartoons till mom said I could go out. Then I would spend hours with my friends building snowmen and snow sculptures and snow forts untill my toes and fingers were numb. Mom would call me back in and I would peel off my wet socks and sit with my feet over the heating vent with my toes tingling till she brought me a cup of hot chocolate and some cookies. Then I would spend the rest of the day drawing pictures of the snow and watching more TV. Absolute PERFECTION!

 Today, as an adult with teenagers at home, my husband and I both work for schools so we still get snow days and I still get excited about them. But now, as I sit here looking a the winter wonderland outside, I try to think of the most productive way to use this unplanned day off. I could catch up on the laundry? I could start working on the tax returns? Lord knows the kitchen floor needs mopping!!?……….You know what? I think I’ll go see if my kids want to go out back and build a snowman. I mean, why mess with perfection, right?! 😊