Failure to Plan.

We had a little snow over the weekend. A couple of inches. Not too much, but along with it we had some unusually cold temperatures (cold for us). Our high today is only supposed to be in the 20's and the low is around 17 degrees. So what? So the school district decided to have 2 hour late start this morning. Thankfully a friend of mine was scheduled to sub in Alex's seminary class and she found out about the late start and called me (at 5:15am). We only have seminary on days when the kids go to school on time - so that means that I had to call 10 families this morning at about 5:30am. It's a fun call to make:

Them: (very sleepy sounding) hello...

Me: I'm calling to let you know that since school is on 2 hour late start we won't be having seminary.

Them: (wide awake and very chipper sounding) really??...thank you!

I had to leave a message at two houses - one of which is our seminary principal. I talked to him last night - he called me because I had a question about our "snow day" protocol. He said that he would work on it and we (all the teachers) would discuss it this morning. Oops. Too late. I talked to a couple of the other teachers this morning and we each offered to call one other teacher to make sure that they knew. The one that I talked to knew, but he wasn't going to call his students - he expected them to find out for themselves and if they didn't, they would be punished by showing up to a closed church. Ouch.

First Snow, Act II

It's really quite cold here. The snow continued a bit overnight-we may not have much accumulation, but the weather is supposed to remain below freezing for the next 3 days - so it's not too likely to melt.

First Snow

Baby, it's cold outside.

A rose by any other name...

A couple of weeks ago Steve and I were browsing around Costco and walked by the seasonal plants. We found some "amaryllis" bulbs and there you go...

My only regret is that the flowers are definitely orange-ish. Not quite the Christmas red that I was hoping for, but that's okay, any plant that can survive my brown thumb can bloom any color it want to.

Tube Time

In December I fall prey to a weakness of mine. Weakness? She has a weakness? Say it isn't so...yes, I love to watch Christmas movies. Not only do I love to watch them, I am not overly discriminating when it comes to quality. Made for tv movies are generally not my "cup of cocoa" - but during December, I throw caution to the winds.

I'm not sure exactly what is so appealing about them - often, very often, they are poorly made, heavily cliched, and badly cast. The one thing that most of them have in common is a happy ending. I'm a sucker for a happy ending.

Favorite Christmas movies:

We're No Angels.

It's A Wonderful Life.

A Christmas Carol (various adaptations, including but not limited to "A Muppet Christmas Carol", the Albert Finney version "Scrooge" and the Patrick Stewart version - I love the thought of Captain Picard as Ebeneezer Scrooge)

Elf. I'm not a Will Ferrell fan, but this I like.

If You Believe (a young Hayden Panterrie plays in this one)

A Season for Miracles

The Santa Clause (the first one)

Not so favorites:

The Santa Clause sequels...but I'll still watch them

Jingle All the Way. Arnold and Sinbad in a Christmas movie? Who thought that was a good idea?

Scrooged. Well, I like parts of this one - but it's a little too dark and edgy PLUS they swear...

Last but not least...

The Bishop's Wife. In some ways this is a great movie, after all it has Cary Grant in it. BUT - he plays a sort of romantic lead - and the bishop's wife is, after all, the bishop's WIFE. Given the choice would you go with a very prim, proper and repressed David Niven or Cary Grant? See - I don't like the idea of being tempted into infidelity by an angel...and Cary Grant is nothing if not tempting...oh, and now he's an angel...

What's your favorite holiday show?

Blogiversary

Yes, that is a marshmallow tied to a die cast truck. And that's all I'm going to say about today's science experiment.

It's been a year since the Borg Queen assimilated me into the collective. 552 blog posts later I'm happy to have been assimilated. Mostly because I count this as my journal and I've never been good at keeping a journal. Until now.

Our Very Own Fancy Nancy

When Stephanie asked Miriam what kind of cake she wanted for her birthday Miriam asked for a "papillon" cake. Papillon is a fancy word that means butterfly (in French).