Sunday afternoon Jeremy was on the phone for hours, coordinating work schedules. They’re moving back to a 3 day in-office work week to cut down on exposure, but we also had a fast-moving storm pop up with predicted overnight accumulations of 4-7”, which added some scheduling fun.
We haven’t gotten 4-7″ of snow in the last few years combined, let alone in one storm. We weren’t sure it would actually happen since storms frequently underperform here, but we woke up to a lot of snow. The power went out around 11am because of all the heavy wet snow. I measured the accumulation on the deck railing and we had 7” just after 11am, and it was still snowing. The power was only out for about half an hour.
The boys loved it and had a lot of fun playing in it. Max wanted so badly to go out and play with them, and went running back and forth between the windows and doors, keeping an eye on them.
We lost power again in the early afternoon for 2.5-3 hours, but didn’t have any further problems, which was a lot better than a lot of people in our area who were still without power 5-6-7 days after the storm.
After it stopped snowing, the snow started to melt a little, then the temps dropped and it started icing over.
I snowshoed to the mailboxes to check on the conditions. The road our mailboxes are on was clear, though our road isn’t. The snow will melt quick, it always does, so there’s not much point in plowing. I did take a few minutes to shovel the stairs to cut down on ice.
Jeremy took the Subaru out to break a path before the snow iced over. He said it handled the snowy hill better than the CRV ever has. With the tire tracks through the snow in place, we’ll be able to get out, even when it ices over overnight. Temps are supposed to drop to the single digits- a pretty rare occurrence here.
I had insomnia again but our music lessons got canceled since our teacher has no power (plus the roads were icy since it was still below freezing), so I went back to sleep for a bit Tuesday morning.
In the afternoon I did the grocery shopping. The roads weren’t bad, just a little wet since it was above freezing. The crowds were a little smaller since people were staying home.
There was no karate class that evening because of the widespread power outages and bad roads (mostly the more rural areas) in the area. So we practiced on our own. Ocean went to bring my laptop downstairs from my bedroom, only it was heavier than he expected and he dropped it while on the stairs. It somersaulted down the stairs, but doesn’t seem to have been damaged, though it did leave some marks on the wood floor. Thank goodness for solid state drives. If it didn’t have one, it would be toast. Poor kiddo- he wants to help, but frequently overestimates his abilities.
I had another night of insomnia, which meant a slow morning. Jeremy has been home all week so far between the snow days and the reduced workforce due to a covid resurgence. He’s still working though- figuring out who has power to do work at home, who can physically get out of their driveway and to the building, etc. Lots of fun.
Above freezing temps during the day and below freezing temps have made for icy conditions. The heavy wet snow brought down a lot of trees and power lines and there’s still a lot of people without power. And another storm is supposed to come through Thursday night, though not as much snow this time. Surprisingly, the snow hasn’t all melted off like it usually does.
Thursday I dealt with more insomnia and a headache. Life goes on though, so I took Sunshine to the orthodontist, ran some errands, had my YW Presidency meeting. That last one had already been rescheduled twice because of loss of power (one of my counselors) and the impending storm.
Friday we woke up to ~2″ of snow, but it wasn’t wet and heavy, so there wasn’t further damage that I could tell. It was below freezing all day, though. The main roads are clear, but the back roads are iffy and there’s still people without power from Sunday night’s storm. I’m sure all the local school kids are happy- they got an extra 4-5 days of vacation this week, depending on if they were due to start on Monday or Tuesday.
We practiced karate as a family, then went to class. It was our first time using escrimas (batons). We still don’t have our gear bags, so we can’t practice yet, but I’m looking forward to practicing the routines- the 6 point and 7 point we learned were quite rhythmic when done with a partner.
Saturday it was still below freezing most of the day, so not all the snow has melted.
My foot has been doing a lot better, but it was pretty sore when I woke up. it did not appreciate our karate workout Friday night.
I tried to cut some vinyl for next week’s YW activity, but the cutter wasn’t connecting properly to my laptop. In the process of trying to get it to work properly, I got distracted and went back to working on something I’d started earlier in the afternoon: setting up this WordPress blog. I’m not loving the theme options, so it’s still a work in progress, but I do have this year’s posts copied over and the future posts I’d started (just a couple of each, so not a big deal) are in place as well. Once I get the theme figured out, I’ll post one last post with the link to this one on the blogspot site, then only post here.
When I have time, I need to figure out how much it’ll cost (it’s not a project I’m taking on myself) to migrate 14 years’ worth of posts (more than 2100 total!) to this site. I also want to get all the posts printed into books, one for each year, as this is essentially an online journal. While there’s a lot of our lives that’s not included, there’s a lot that is, and I’d like to have printed records to share with the kids. Especially since I haven’t printed out pictures and scrapbooked them since Sunshine was a baby.
I’d like to keep everything in one place, so I’d like it done sooner, rather than later, but I also don’t necessarily have the bandwidth to do my due diligence in finding someone to take care of it for me. And then there’s the money issue. I’m pretty sure it’ll be a painful amount. I mean, they’ll earn their money and I’d rather pay someone else to do it than do it myself (since I don’t actually know how and would have to figure out how to do it first and then it would take more time than I have to actually take care of it), but we’re also trying to keep our expenses to a minimum, so …..
Sunday I took the kids to church, but Jeremy had virtual drill Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (due to the storm Thursday night and some people still being without power from Sunday night’s storm). Jeremy picked up the kids after church so they didn’t have to wait around through my two hours of meetings- a short class presidency training, ward council, and my monthly bishop interview.
I finally got the Silhouette working, but then I couldn’t get the vinyl to stick to the canvas. I did a little research and realized I should have done some research earlier in the process. According to the research, I needed to put Mod Podge on the canvas first.
I dug through my craft cupboard and found an old bottle of Mod Podge. I also remembered I had a bottle of gesso, so I did some experimenting. I coated half the canvas with gesso and half with Mod Podge. Then I used a combination of actual vinyl and contact paper to see which worked best (contact paper is a lot cheaper and I had a lot to make, but I didn’t want to waste time on something that didn’t work). Then I put Mod Podge and gesso on top to seal the vinyl/contact paper so paint won’t seep under.
After that dried, I painted the canvas, then peeled up the vinyl and contact paper. Both methods and both vinyl and contact paper allowed seepage. So I think I’ll do gesso (I have a large bottle that has been sitting around for years, so I’ll finally put it to use), contact paper (cheap and I already bought some for this project), then a layer of white paint on top. Even if the white paint seeps, it won’t be super obvious. I’ll get some white paint, brushes and a variety of acrylics on Monday, and I should be good to go. (fingers crossed)
Prepping the canvases before and after the vinyl application is going to add time to the process. I should have started this sooner. oops.
