The Last Few Weeks

- January 13, 2022

It’s a little hard to put into works how crazy the last couple of weeks have been. The week between Christmas and New Years all the kids were out of school, I was trying to work from home and certain people were having all sorts of struggles with that arrangement that and it blew up into all sorts of ways that we’re still figuring out. It was also cold enough that we burst a pipe. Luckily Pat is handy and was able to take care of it. The next week the boys were back at school, but Bella want, so she spent the days babysitting at the house where Gabe goes for the afternoon. But it got crazy cold outside. Those were temps that I’ve never seen in this town.

That would have been okay, except that our heat pump was having trouble keeping up. It does okay if we’re above 10, but below that, it just can’t do it, so our house was down to 51. We do have a pellet stove in one room, so we’d all huddle in that room for the evenings and the kids all got to have a sleepover in Gabe’s room, which was the warmest as it only has one outside wall rather than two. The boys thought that was so much fun that they were bummed when it warmed up and Josy had to go back to his own bed.

One morning I got up and turned on the space heater in the bathroom and turned on the water to get in the shower, only to discover that we had no water. Pat stuck a heat dish on the water main and luckily that warmed things up enough that the water came back on. We made sure to leave water running from then on it, even though Gabe was convinced it was a waste of water. Then our toilet quit flushing. The other ones were fine, it was just the one in it bathroom. Luckily that came back when the temp hit 31 and nothing burst as far as we can tell.

Then we had a winter storm. We’ve already had crazy snow, with about 3 feet of snow on our roof. And then we got a massive storm that was forecasted to dump 12-24 more inches, followed by turning to rain. By the time the storm was done, we had 54 inches of snow on our roof. So Pat spent several evenings shoveling it off, hoping to get a bunch of before the rain hit.

Sunday night it started raining and with that much snow everywhere, the roads turned to ice rinks. They canceled school for three days because it wasn’t safe to be out on the roads. Buildings collapsed. The grocery store closed down due to roof concerns. Trash day was canceled. It was crazy. I’ve never seen that much stuff shut down before. I appreciate the fact they were trying to keep people safe, but it was bizarre.

Wednesday Gabe’s school opened up, but late Tuesday night I found out that the friend her was hanging out with on Friday was sick, so I kept him home just in case. She tested positive Wednesday morning, which put both Bella and Gabe in quarantine. Luckily it was day 5, so they were fine today and could go to school.

On top of that, Pat’s job has been crazy. He’s trying to train a new guy while also being the only guy on the job. My job has been crazy. Luckily I can work from home, because I was working until 11pm on Monday. And I’m going on a girls trip tomorrow with my college girlfriends.

Seriously. The last few weeks have been chaos. Oh, and Gabe has suddenly gotten into the Revolutionary War. That’s made for some interesting conversations…

But we have gotten to at least have a little fun.

He insisted on bringing his new recycle truck to breakfast.

Gabe loves Queen Anne’s Revenge.

These two are going to be little buddies.

Gabe loves his Freddy. I’m not sure Freddy appreciates it though.

The floor is a great place to nap.

Fun new mugs from Great Gram!

He insisted that I put Blanket in the washing machine, to make it “nice and warm and cozy.” Then he had to watch it. And there was drama when he finished lunch and went to check it and it wasn’t in the washing machine anymore since I’d put it in the dryer.

“Measure Feddy.”

You know it’s a lot of snow when there’s too much snow to go sledding…

He informed me that I needed to take his picture with the hat on.

More Freddy love.

I regularly walk in to wake him up and find him asleep on the floor. This is why he doesn’t get to sleep on the top bunk yet.

Snuggled up all warm and cozy waiting for breakfast.

Someone was very excited to sleep with all of Gabe’s stuffed animals.

Since Bella’s room was too cold to nap in, she took a nap on the couch while the rest of us were in there hanging out, since it was the only room in the house that was warm.