Blizzard

Nope, I'm not talking about Dairy Queen's yummy ice cream treats. It's much much too cold to be having one of those right now! ha!

Last night we were hit with a "blizzard". You know, really REALLY REALLY cold temperatures, high winds, and of coarse lots of snow.

15 years ago I would have been very excited to be in the midst of a blizzard because that meant that when it was over, I could go outside and play in the snow. But now, I'm not so excited. In fact, I dread it.

You see, to most people around here, winter isn't a very big deal because they have tractors and plows, 4 wheel drive, and more importantly, a well insulated home. We have... none of the above.
We live on a mountain where we are assured to get lots and lots of snow, and our driveway is north facing, and it's steep, so that means I have to constantly clear the driveway and throw sand down. By hand. I don't have a tractor or plow.

Our home is poorly insulated. Heat goes through the windows, walls, and ceiling real fast. So in order to stay warm, we have to either 1) Spend $350 a month on propane; 2) Heat the house with 15+ cords of wood (just for winter); or 3) Use the horribly expensive and useless baseboard heaters.

Seeing as how it's hard enough to make rent and pay bills, it's probably obvious that we don't pay $350 a month for propane and paying an extremely high power bill is most likely out too. So we use wood. My husband and I spend spring, summer, and fall getting firewood in and ready for winter. It's pretty tough considering that my husband is a truck driver and is only home a few days a month. So gathering wood is an ongoing process for us.

So, the house is poorly insulated, which means we constantly have a fire going in the wood stove (in both wood stoves if it's very cold, like now). But wait!! The wood stoves are ancient and rather inefficient, so it can be extra daunting to keep the house warm during extremely cold days and nights.

All this just to keep the house ( and it's not even the whole house - just the living room) barely at 60 degrees.

So you see, when it's cold, and I mean very very very cold, I dread it.

I know you're thinking, "Why don't you move? Any sane person would move." Easy answer...we can't. We can't afford to and my husband's ex has made it almost impossible just to rent the place we are in now- but that's another story.

So while everyone is dreaming of a White Christmas (or Thanksgiving), my mind is thinking of a nice warm tropical island and cabana boys bringing me drinks with those little umbrellas while I lounge away on the nice white sandy beach. I guess we can both have a "White" Christmas! LOL

Weee! I mean..Wii!

Friday my son went to a party celebrating IDVA's ALP Team on winning the Idaho Math Cup. He was so excited that he woke up early and did his chores before my husband and I were even awake!

During the party, they held an awards ceremony in which his classmates received a tshirt and an $80 Visa Card! Since the kids in Team ALP are scattered across the area, they will hold a statewide ceremony at the Capital in Boise where the class will be awarded the Math Cup!

What made Friday so exciting for my son was that he was awarded a certificate for Most Valuable Player and a Nintendo Wii in addition to the other prizes!

Congratulations!! We are SO proud of you!!

History

"All history becomes subjective; in other words there is properly no history, only biography"

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

As I take a break from writing for NaNoWriMo, I happen to come across this quote. It seemed appropriate since my son was working on a history lesson at the time and he was having a problem agreeing with what was being taught. I had to explain to him that most of the time, history books were written by those who "won", so naturally, the "losers" would be portrayed as the "bad guys". At least that is how I think of it.

But that's not what I was thinking about.

I was actually thinking about events that have happened in my own life and how others see them differently than I do. As I did so, this quote became even more evident. History, being a story, like everything else, is relative. It is relative to everything and everyone around us. In other words, what is good to one is bad to another and vice versa.

History is not history. It is a biography. It is a story of events and people and what happened. If someone were to write a biography about me, they would most likely get it wrong. Either because of preconceived notions or because they just didn't know me at all. And how many of our history stories were just like that? We may never know unless we somehow build a time machine and go back in time.

History is a story. A story we are to learn from, just as a biography is a story of a person's life or events. We can learn from that too.

Just a little thought for the day. I guess I just liked the quote a lot and thought just how much truth there was to it.

NaNoWriMo

I have been so busy with NaNo that I have forgotten my blog. Okay, I didn't really forget about it, I just haven't done anything as of late.

My awesome son and I took a short break after the Math Cup, and now we're back to our normal routine.... except that now I'm NaNo-ing.

The goal is to write a 50000 word novel by the end of November. So far I've gotten over 15000 words! I'm writing anywhere from 3500-5000 words per day.

I know that seems like a lot, but it's already been written. No, not for real, but everything has already happened, so it's really easy to type it all up. It's based off the true story of...well, me.

I'm sure that when the end of Nov. rolls around I will have my 50000 words, but the story won't be finished. So in December, I'll continue on with it, intermittently while I continue with my second book that I'm working on.

Hmm... I think I might need a break somewhere in there too.