Movie Nite

We woke up to snow again, but just a couple of inches, hardly worth mentioning really.

I spent the morning at the shops buying odds and ends like bathmats and a vacuum cleaner. Met the Man for lunch, then home through fluttery snowflakes to hoover the house.

We've been more than three weeks without a TV now, which I'm perfectly happy about though not so much the Girl and Boy. They were very keen to see a Backyardigans special movie premiere (pron. prem-ear) that they'd heard about, so we foisted ourselves on the Exiles for an impromptu Movie Night / Pyjama Party (the Exile children were already sporting theirs, and our kids rushed in and stripped off their day clothes to reveal pyjamas underneath). They thoroughly enjoyed watching telly together, while the rest of us enjoyed a bit of grown up time and wine and some excellent beans and cornbread (thank you Exile #2) in another room.

Clash consciousness

We had a conference call this morning with six relatives back home - a bit chaotic, but fun.

Today the weather was fine and no-one was ill so we resumed our tradition of the weekend family walk and took a trip to Thacher Park. My, that went down well.



In the afternoon one of the Boy's classmates came for a playdate. Her mother, formerly a designer for a New York fashion house, suggested possible colour schemes for our home. I became very conscious of the fact that for no particular reason I'd decided to wear a shapeless old red zip-up thing over a purple t-shirt (like you do when you know a fashion designer is coming round), and probably looked like I seriously needed advice on colour-scheming, and not just for my walls.

Slippery slope

We have had a quiet day at home. The children spent a long time working together on a 'Roller Aaaargh' - a terrifying cross between a roller coaster and a ghost train, made out of plastic Thomas the Tank Engine track and featuring skeletons, ghouls and a 'bloody hill'. It has taken over the whole of the living room. Meanwhile the Man and I managed to get a bit more unpacking done. This freed up some large sheets of bubblewrap which the kids used rather alarmingly to turn the basement stairs into a sledding slope.

Later, out on our street, we ran into the neighbours who brought us the pumpkin bread (which is delicious - a lot like carrot cake) the other day, so we were able to get to know them a bit better. They happen to have an excellently steep slope in their back yard, so we're hoping for snow again soon so we can go round there and do some more sledding for real.

Bits and pieces

This morning I attended my first meeting of Q.U.I.L.T. - Quilters United In Learning Together (try chanting it - it's quite empowering). It was a big event, with at least a hundred women gathered in a large church hall. We were given a talk, with slides, on vintage quilts. Then we got to see heirloom quilts brought in by members of the group. They were good practical quilts in the main, well crafted and very lovely.

Unfortunately I couldn't hang around to meet and chat with anyone as I had to dash off to school to do my Friday driving duties. Today I took a carload of kids skating, so that was fun plus I got the chance to work on my triple salchow and double axel.

I'd been at school earlier, too, to see assembly. This week we sang a song about Martin Luther King and also Jingle Bells (even though there's no more snow to dash through). Nice, but personally I preferred it last week when everyone sang Frosty the Snowman.

What's in a name?

We're vegetarians, sort of (we eat the odd bit of fish, and as previously documented the Girl is partial to hotdogs). There's plenty of provision for our sort of diet, and not just tofurky either, although I'm sometimes caught out at the supermarket. Recently I came across a whole range of dips called 'Veggie Delight!' Promising, I thought, picking one up, only to discover that it contained bacon.

Mind you, once back home we were famously served 'Vegetarian Quiche Surprise' from Waitrose. The surprise element turned out to be diced ham.

On the subject of labelling, how did this ever happen? Shoppes? That'd be Ye Olde Price Chopper then? Alongside those historic retailers, Ye Radio Shack and Ye K-Mart. And who is this 'Town Squire'?

Gnome away from home

According to Bill Bryson's book about his homeland, Notes from a Big Country (aka I'm a Stranger Here Myself), if you move to Iowa your new neighbours are sure to welcome you with quantities of home-baked goods. Not so in upstate New York, more's the pity - until today that is! The doorbell rang this evening and there on the porch was a family from up the road bearing a gift of pumpkin bread. Very exciting, even more so when we discovered that their girl and boy are pretty close in age to our Girl and Boy. Excellent news.

Last night the Man went skiing with some work colleagues. Here's some evidence.


A propos of nothing, as a student the Man once stood in an election for College Gnome (I say, what jolly high jinks we got up to at university!). But I can't think what suddenly made me think of that.

Snow go area

Christmas must be over. Though many front yards are still bedecked with illuminated candy canes etc, in the shops it's all about Valentine's Day now (except in Jo-ann's craft emporium where Easter is getting a good look-in too).

The weather also seems to have forgotten Christmas. Today has been strangely balmy and spring-like. The snow is melting rapidly, gurgling in streams along the edges of the roads. We have a little 'three season room' (a conservatory sort of thing) tacked onto the back of our house, and the snowmelt is merrily leaking through its roof. It's an irritatingly familiar scenario for us as back in Linton we had a leaky conservatory for years (it now rests in pieces). When we began house-hunting here we were puzzled by how much emphasis was placed on the newness of a property's roof - now we can see why. Fortunately the roof of our main building is very new and should certainly keep us dry for the rest of this winter (should it decide to resume) and some more to come.