I made it home just in time!

I made it home around 2 yesterday afternoon. It was a long, slow drive. The passes were covered in snow. It was snowing. And, the wind was blowing so hard that snow was blowing off on the mountains and causing white-outs. I’ve never seen so many wrecks. There were cars on their sides, upside down, and all covered in snow. It continued to snow last night, but I didn’t even want to watch it. I had seen more than my share of snow for the day. Today, I-70 is closed in many places. I would have been stuck in Denver if my flight had not been so early. I have some pictures from Christmas that I will post later. I’m on the wrong computer to do that right now. I am cutting and pasting part of Steph’s blog from today. There will be a race in March for cervical cancer and I wanted to let all my running buddies mark their calendars. Here you go:

I also wanted to let everyone know that we are organizing a walk to honor Stephanie and help raise money and awareness of Cervical Cancer. We are in the process of setting up a website with more information and where you can register. I am trying to get some sort of an idea of how many people will be able to attend. If you would like to participate in the walk or volunteer to help please email me at mellewis@bellsouth.net. We ask that a $20 donation be made and we will have T-shirts. Mark your calendars for the Pray Race And Yell for a Cure Walk which will be held on March 22, 2008 at Shelby Farms. There will be more details soon.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas! Happy New Year!

I ride goofy!

I have a new love. I went snowboarding for the first time. It was awesome! I’m so freakin’ sore and I know I’m going to feel worse tomorrow. I can’t wait to go again. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to until after my trip to Memphis. : ( It will be great to see everyone, but I’m really going to want to go up a mountain and glide back down. I pretty much had a private lesson, since it was Thursday and most people were working. My instructor rocks!! He was supportive and everytime he praised me, I messed up. If he jokingly told me how horrible I was I did even better. We danced down the mountain and went right back up again. (That’s how they teach you.) The majority of times that I fell were on my own free will. I would get going too fast, start laughing, or just get tired and decide to sit down. Jon, my instructor, would turn around and laugh at me. We made snow angels. We watched other snowboarders. It was very peaceful to sit on top of a huge mountain  on the side of the mountain with the little hills with it snowing. A bunch of my kids were there. They were very polite and stopped to check on me. They really wanted to do a run with me, but I’m no where near their level yet. I need to master getting off the lift first. I’ll get better at this once I put my stomp pad on my board. My back foot kept sliding off when I would stand up.

Oh, and to explain my title. I ride like a lefty. My right foot leads. You either ride regular or goofy. I guess everyone should have known that I would be goofy. lol

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

Today is the first day that it has snowed ALL day. It was snowing when I got to school at 7 this morning and it was snowing when I left school at 5:50. I had to try and dig my truck out. We had a few inches and from silling all day, I think my truck had about 6″ across the windshield. I need to invest in one of those ice scrapers with the brush, because A) they are longer, so you can reach the middle of the windshield B) snow doesn’t need to be scraped, but only brushed off C) they help you reach the middle of your windshield. Luckily, Jamie was leaving school at the same time I was and helped me get the little patches of snow off the middle of my windshield and off my wiper blades.

I left school really late today because I chaperoned our first middle school dance. Oh, my! Nothing, I mean nothing, like the dances we had in Memphis. These kids barely danced. It reminded me of my middle school dances back in the day. I was only asked by one student to dance, but I managed to get out of that pretty easily. : ) They had a few slow dances where they separated the boys and girls to opposite sides of the room and then had the boys move across the room to ask a girl to dance. Can we say awkward!?! I only had to say something to one kid about keeping his hands above the equator. Part of it was the fact that he was so short and was dancing with a girl 5″ taller than him. His hands naturally were going to be lower on her backside. Everyone had a good time and now I’m really ready to go out dancing.  All of the “newbies” are planning a night out after the holidays.

I fell asleep on the couch tonight. My phone rang twice earlier and I barely remember answering it. I just woke up and realized that it is almost 2 in the morning. I am suddenly wide awake. I’ve been doing this all week. I guess it’s from staying up so late on Saturday night. I just went to the window to check for snow. Yes, there are light powdery flakes still falling from the sky. But, I was so much more excited about the 5 mule deer that were wandering through the yard and in the street. The deer are so pretty. I was told today that people in town put food out for them and salt licks. I don’t understand this. Maybe, if you lived out of the suburbs. Why would intentionally attract wild creatures to your home? They could get hit by cars. This would really damage your vehicle and the deer. It’s illegal to shoot them within the city limits, so lets just attract them to the city to save them? I don’t know what people are thinking. Everyone knows that Bubba hunts, so I have nothing against hunting and find deer rather tasty. : ) I just want to know  what the point is of attracting deer to the neighborhoods and the city. Any ideas?

I left my SS clues at work, so I’ll have to update that tomorrow. She did wear her badge proudly.

Secret Santa Day 1

Well, I didn’t think she was going to make it. I waited all day to hear her voice on the intercom. Finally, at 3:00 she came on announced choir practice after school. She was down to the last 5 minutes of school and was going to receive poop, but she made it. I grabbed a 6th grader out of class and had them deliver the package. The little girl was very sweet as I threatened her to not tell Loree where the gift came from, what grade she was in, or what class she was in right now. Of course, Loree questioned her. The girl didn’t budge, just said she had been sworn to secrecy. : ) This is so much fun!!

Tomorrow’s adventure - I made you a sign. You are sure to look fine and it will warm this heart of mine. : - )   I made a sign that says “My secret santa loves me!” It has little ornaments hanging around the bottom and is made of poster board about 5″x5″.

Secret Santa begins!!

Tomorrow is the first day of Secret Santa at school. I’m so excited! I am the proud S.S. of one of the awesome office ladies. I’ve decided to make her work for her prizes. Tomorrow, I’m going to send her the following letter:

Santa is watching us, so don’t make a fuss. Follow the rules soon enough and you will recieve good stuff. Ignore the request to jump through a hoop and all you will get is snowman poop. It is time for you to make a choice. We ALL need to hear your VOICE, for it is the season to rejoice!     Good Luck, S.S.

My intention is for her to say something to her S.S. on the intercom. I hope she gets it or I have to go buy some snowman poop. (marshmallows)  I’ll let you know how it all turns out tomorrow. And, I’ll let you know how my SS does.

Oh, all the snow on the ground is gone. It melted quickly today. It’s beautiful on the mountains. I want to go venture up valley to see it soon.

I couldn’t sleep, so I took pictures.

The first picture is dark, but you can see the snowflakes falling. : )

The second picture was taken at the park beside the house. These were beautiful flowers this summer. There was NO snow at 9 pm tonight. I took this picture at midnight. It’s still falling. 

And,  just so you know…I will always be a Tennessee girl no matter where I live.

Lazy cat

I took a few pictures on Sunday. Now, don’t freak out. Molly has gained some weight since she moved to being an indoor kitty. She still very loving, and very moody. Well, she’s a cat.

Updating…

I had a pretty quiet weekend. I was excited to wake up to all the snow on Sunday morning. It was beautiful and put me in a great mood. I caught up on some of my school work and cleaned the apartment. Monday was just yesterday, but it seems like it was last week already. I had a meeting after school from 4:30-7:30!

I need to be in Memphis taking care of Alison with the schedule I have tomorrow. In case you don’t know, my darling niece doesn’t like to sleep at night. She loves to have her daddy’s full attention in the middle of the night. ; ) I think she just likes to have him all to herself and doesn’t want to share with mommy. I don’t blame her, he’s a really good guy and she was spending her days with mommy’s full attention.  Sorry, I just have Ali on the brain. Where was I going with this? Tomorrow! I have to be up at 3:30 AM!!!!!!!!!! Yep, I’m headed to Denver for a conference and it starts at 8:30 AM. It takes about 3 hours to drive there, so we are leaving at 4:30. I am now thinking to myself, why did I sign up for this conference? Why would I do this to myself?  Originally, we had planned on driving up tonight and going to dinner, hang out, whatever. Then, we had the meeting until 7:30 and that shot that idea right out the window. We are expecting snow tomorrow which means the Vail Pass should be a lot of fun in the morning. Let’s hope good driving conditions and a great conference.

The cutest bundle ever!

Isn’t she sweet? This was taken my last night in town. We were headed out to dinner and had to bundle up. I stopped by to kiss her bye and left her about 4-1/2 hours later. Her parents are out of town celebrating their 1st anniversary this weekend. I hope that they are having a great time and that Marshell is getting to sleep through the night.