Saturday, February 06, 2010

A Free Weekend

The snow. The kids were disappointed that the snow didn't come in time to give them a snow day. It started about 9:30 a.m. Friday morning. I was leaving the house to teach and when I opened the door, I heard the tinking of ice hitting the frozen ground and the house.
"Do you hear that?" I turned back and asked Earl.
"Yeah, I hear the birds."
But, no. Not the birds fighting over the bird feeder and filling the bushes. The sound of the snow and ice. Tiny little pellets were spitting from the sky.
In class, I looked out the window and the snow flakes were huge, big as a baby's fist as they pelted from the sky. The weather was still fairly warm, hovering around 31 degrees so the flakes were big and wet.
I wore clogs to class. Snow filled my shoes as I walked outside two hours later.

The male cardinal is easy to find in this tree.
Can you spot his mate?

As the snow continued to fall, cancellations filled the television screen.
No basketball game that night. Check. I could mark it off my list.
The swim meet on Saturday was cancelled. Another check. Grace has a cold anyway so she should stay home and get well.
The snow continued in the dark, somewhere between 9-12 inches they estimated. And this morning, the cold had settled in and the newly dried snow blew wildly around the sky. Was it new snow or the old snow blowing?
It didn't matter, because we all slept in and the college we were supposed to visit on Sunday called to cancel.
Cha-ching. Three cancellations and I could spend all weekend at home grading papers.

Tucker took a picture of the bird feeder.
He said it had an afro that needed some styling.

I made a pot of Beach Bar Tomato Soup that includes cream cheese and half & half. Imagine how rich it is with chunks of stewed tomatoes. I put Italian-style croutons in the soup and sprinkle some sharp cheddar on top.
Grace baked cupcakes in preparation for her 18th birthday party tomorrow and we hardly left the house. This is luxury. Even if I do still have a ton of papers to grade. At least, I have time to do that now.

2 comments:

Frenchee le Trip said...

Love your post and your writing. I almost felt like I was there with you. Thanks for the tip about the Eiffel Tower book - sounds just like my kind of thing. I will look for it, for sure.

Your soup recipe has put thoughts in my head - I'm going to look for a creamy tomato soup recipe too, though there's not a cloud in the sky in Provence, and the snow melted long ago.

Bon dimanche!

Anne in Oxfordshire said...

Hello Paulita, thank you so much for you delightful comment, now that is a great idea about the map, I think I might try and do one, and put it on my blog :-)

Wow you have had soooooo much snow. We have been watching the reports on the TV about the weather in Washington and other places, lets hope it warms up soon.

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