Adaptability and Other Random Thoughts

According to the thermometer on my porch, it is 4 degrees today. According to the weather channel website, it feels like -13 degrees. Did you get that, minus 13 degrees. We did not walk to school today. M was so funny this morning. He bundled up in long sleeves, sweater, and heavy coat and kept going out and walking around and then he would come in and say, “It doesn’t feel that cold!” I told him he’d be singing a different tune if we were to walk all the way to school out there.

By the way, I don’t think my car has ever been so cold. The principal was on car line duty today, and when she opened the door and greeted the boys, she said to me, “Now this really isn’t South Carolina weather, is it?” You got that right. On the way home, my car thermometer was reading zero degrees. Now that is just plain cold, no lie. Not to mention the raging, and I do mean raging, sinus headache I have at the moment.

But the big disappointment these days in the Sweet Tea family (at least if you ask my boys, that is) is that there has been no snow to speak of since we moved here. The boys, especially M, were all excited about snow, and visions of snow men and snowball fights played prominently in their minds and dreams, but as of today, no snow to speak of yet. We did have flurries the other day while we were out running errands and you should have seen how excited they got about actually seeing falling snow. J managed to scrape enough off the car to make a very dirty snowball, which is now in a baggie in my freezer. Don’t ask me why. I just live here.

Drew informed the boys (and me) that it doesn’t snow when it’s this cold because it only gets this cold when it is clear. Who knew? Is that fact, or is he just making that up? Anyone know? I figure he knows what he’s talking about, having grown up in Connecticut and Indiana. He spent enough undergraduate days trudging through cold and snow when he was at Ball State, so I guess he knows better than this Florida girl.

Boo is getting better about not fighting me when putting on her coat. I guess she’s finally figured out how cold she is if she doesn’t wear it, and warm is good!

And another thing about adaptability, I thought it would be great to be an hour behind – the good TV shows are on earlier. Just shows how much I know. The only show I really watch anymore is LOST, because I got so hooked in earlier seasons that now I just really need to know how it’s going to end. Only ABC has put it back on Wednesday night. NOOOOOOOO! Why couldn’t they leave it on Thursday night??? The big premiere event is next Wednesday at 8/7 Central. Meaning 7pm for me. I went to choir practice for the first time last night at the church we are pretty sure we’re going to be joining. I loved it. And I’m feeling really guilty that I’m so torn about wanting to stay home next week and watch LOST, when I really need to be getting involved and committing to choir. Why not just tape it, you ask? Because I am so technologically inept that I cannot figure out how to get our recorder to work with our cable system. I asked Drew if he could figure something out before next Wednesday…..please, oh, pretty please? I’m hoping that the regularly scheduled time for LOST will be later and that they are just doing one of those premiere thingies with the early start next week.

And one more random thing about change: I’m working on the new laptop Drew got us. It was loaded with all this new stuff, and the version of Word I’m using to write this post is a newer version. I cannot for the life of me find the ‘save file’ button. Why do they keep changing things around? Change, in and of itself, is not always a good thing. Sometimes not changing is good. I finally get used to something, and they go and change it, just like the time and day for LOST. Grrrrrr.

And, another thing about the time change from Eastern to Central: when we first moved here, I had a really hard time adapting to the hour behind thing. I would wake up around 4:30AM and have a hard time getting back to sleep and then be petering out by 8:30PM. I’m kind of a morning person. I don’t mean I’m all that perky in the morning, just that I do better in the morning. I have to get things done early in the day. That’s just how I am. Well, I’ve adapted. I’m staying up way too late, and today I had the hardest time waking up at 6:15. That would be 7:15, island time (or Eastern Standard, if you prefer), and normally would have been late for me, but today I had a really hard time getting up. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that the night before I woke up stressing about a whole bunch of silly stuff around 3:30AM and couldn’t get back to sleep and then last night Boo had a bad night, meaning another short night for me. Anyway, I’m tired. My neighbor back ‘on the island’ told me that the first week we were gone her kids almost missed the bus because she used to watch for us to walk by at 7:30 and then she’d know it was time – she knew I was a morning early bird, and she so wasn’t. The boys’ old school started at 8:30. Here, they don’t have to be there until 9AM, which is 10AM on my body’s time table, and I looked at the clock the other day, thinking of my neighbor friend, and realized her kids had already been in school for an hour and a half. I thought I’d have no problem getting the boys to school on time here. Well. I’ve adapted. I’m not sure I’d be able to get them there any earlier if I tried.

Must be the cold weather.