Wimpy snow storms and earthquakes

Well, the "big snow storm" we were suppose to have last night sputtered out...again.
Since we've moved here, we haven't really had much snow to speak of.

I'm not complaining, mind you.
But the kids hate it when all their friends are having snow days back in Kzoo and they have to go to school. Makes it hard for them to not miss Michigan on those mornings.

But I am starting to understand the "looks" and comments I got from some of the neighbors when they saw my snow blower from Michigan. "Wow. That's a really big snow blower you have there."

They all have these wimpy little blowers that are about 12 inches wide and sound like they run on the motor of a toy remote car.

We have a man size snow blower. You know, Troy-Bilt, Briggs and Stratton 9.5 horse power, 5 speed and 2 speed reverse, 26 inch auger. It's huge. Even has head lights (that's what I always tell people because I really don't know much about motors and such...head lights, now that's impressive!)

I feel like Tim Taylor when I use it. Tempted to make one of his husky "oh oh oh" noises and then point it over at my neighbors driveway and bury them.

But I've only used it once since we've been here. I actually like the peace and quiet of shoveling once and a while, especially when there's only a little snow.

The big news around here is the earthquake we had this morning at 4:00 am. The epicenter was less than 10 miles from us and it was a 3.8 (this has all been revised since this morning- originally they said 4.3).

All I know is that it scared the living day lights out of all of us.

I was asleep on the couch downstairs with Ace (long story, he's being a bit of a bad puppy) when the whole house started shaking. There was this deep rumbling noise and Ace was running in circles barking. It lasted about 5 to 10 seconds, enough for me to run around the house while things were shaking all around me, look outside, and then run upstairs. Hubby said "what the heck was that?" we couldn't believe it would be an earthquake. Earthquakes in Illinois? Whoever heard of such a thing.

One of our cats came from Tony's room into our bedroom. His tail was huge and all the hair on his back was standing up straight. It took me a while to find the other cat this morning. He was hiding in between some moving boxes in the basement. Poor guy.

Ace did the same barking running in circles at about 5:30 am again. The news said we probably wouldn't feel any aftershocks but I'm wondering if Ace did.

There were some pretty interesting stories on the Chicago News this morning from people saying their animals alerted them before the quake actually hit. Everything from dogs to cats to birds.

I wasn't sure if it woke the kids or not. None of them came out of their rooms but when I went to wake them up for school Bud rolls over, puts the pillow over his head and says "I'm tired, that earthquake kept me awake last night."

Like we had ten of them last night and it's nothing new to him.
Mac jumped up and said "was that an earthquake at 4 am?" and Tony said "my bed was banging against the wall and I thought it was the puppy".

I'm still shocked that none of them came out of their rooms, scared.
As for me, I made the Hubby hold me tight and fought the urge to go get all my babies and bring them into our bed (yeah I know they are all grown up size) and I really wanted Nae there.

I guess that's a mom thing.

flying Forrest Gump style

The Hubby used to travel a lot with his old job. Even though it's nice having him home now, I'm gonna miss all those frequent flyer miles we could use on vacations.

We used up our last free miles for this trip. And there was just enough left over to bump us up to first class....but only on the way there.

I've never flown first class before and I'm sure it probably isn't what it used to be but it was definitely nice to have the big seats, pillows and blankets, "first class" bathroom up front [sure I didn't have to share it with all the other passengers but there's nothing special about it....you can trust my professional bathroom connoisseur opinion].

The best part was getting on the plane first and not having to fight to stow your carry on.

To me, that is the worst part about flying, especially since they started charging to check luggage.

I wish they would start enforcing their rules about carry-on's. You know, one carry on that you can store over head and one you can stow under the seat in front of you. There are so many people who bring two HUGE pieces on the plane, shove them in the overhead compartment at the front of the plane as they head to their seats in the back. Then the people getting on later have no where to put their stuff and end up having to check it anyways.

They need to have the overhead compartments labeled with the seat numbers. You get to put your ONE carry on in that space only. Then have a stewardess at the back of the plane when you board who is watching these people who try and shove coats another piece of luggage up there and say "No I'm sorry, you'll have to check that if it doesn't fit under your seat." They can sit there with it on their lap until everyone else boards and then go to the front and check it.

I know it would take extra time, but it seems like it takes forever the old way with the stewardesses trying to move luggage around in the overheads and shove things in there anyways. We still had a line of poor souls who were the last on the plane and only had one carry on and had to check it.


The last time I flew, I was alone after helping Nae drive out to Colorado for her summer internship. I flew Northwest Airlines. They have this "choose your own seat" boohaha. It was awful. They still assign you a "zone" and a "number". You get called to board by zones then when you get in line they ask you to get in numerical order. I felt like I was in kindergarten again. Of course, I was in the last zone and the last number so I was the last one on the plane.


Our flight wasn't full, which in a "choose your own seat" arrangement is considered a nightmare. Trust me.


I looked down the center isle and there were open seats scattered through out the plane, but with at least one person sitting in each row. I looked into the face of the person sitting next to the first open seat. He was a big man who kinda reminded me of the boy who would throw rocks at me at the bus stop when I was a kid [yeah Kim, you know who I'm talking about :)]. He kinda glared at me and spread his big muscly arms out to demonstrate how my personal space would be violated if I chose to sit next to him.


The next guy who I looked at with an open seat quickly looked away and suddenly developed this phelmy nasty cough that he obviously couldn't possibly cover with his hand if I chose to sit next to him.


There was a woman who was knitting who decided that her yarn needed it's own seat as I passed by.

A teen who threw her legs over the next seat.

Some people didn't do anything but glare at me and give me the "I'll kill you if you take this seat" message.


Even though no one actually said "Seat's taken" I still felt like Forrest Gump on the school bus that first day of school.

And there was no "Jenny" volunteering up a seat.

http://media.photobucket.com/image/forrest%20gump%20images/uploader2010/snapshot20091030063117.jpg

I finally asked the stewardess to find me a seat "or otherwise someone is gonna hurt me".

I'm wondering if the people at Northwest Airlines who decided this "choose your own seat" was a great idea have actually tried it themselves....

Scary cowboys and their mamas

My experience on the Metra the other day-- when I teasingly yelled at Tony and the guy sitting near him has got me remembering another story from a few years ago.
I thought I'd share it with you today.

We were going on a 2 week camping trip out west with a big group of friends. There were around 5 or 6 families that all spent the previous year planning this trip. Each family had their own itinerary but we were meeting up in certain places out west and camping together. Each day we were together we had one event planned. The husbands each picked a day, then planned something fun to do for the whole group and then planned a devotion to lead around the camp fire at the end of the day. For example, one day we went white water rafting, another was horseback riding in the Tetons, another we went to a rodeo in Red Lodge, Montana. We did a lot of sight seeing and travel as individual families but it was fun to meet up as this huge group.

Our family got to the Red Lodge, Montana campground a day earlier than everyone else. It was the most interesting group of campers we had ever seen. The entire camp ground was filled with cowboys for the upcoming rodeo. I had never seen a real cowboy before. The majority of these guys were "huge, cowboy boots and hat wearin', tobacco spittin', foul language usin', scary looking guys"! We checked in and were assigned our little campsite. After the office guy gave us the whole "don't walk to the bathroom by yourself in the middle of the night--you might get eaten by a mountain lion" lecture, we found our site and proceeded to set up our little pop-up.
It was impossible to not notice the guys at the campsite next to us. They were camping in one of those huge deluxe campers with the TV and air conditioner inside. There were 3 men and they all were at least 6'4" or taller. They each had a woman with them and a there were a few little kids running around too. I don't know who belonged to who. And then there was a very small older woman with them. We found out later that these 3 men were brothers and did an event in the rodeo as a team. They rode horses after a wild Stallion and tried to capture it and put a saddle on him and ride him. It was something they did at the very end of the rodeo. I don't know if it was an actual rodeo event but it was very impressive!

But I'm getting ahead of myself. We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening setting up our campsite getting dinner and playing games with the kids. We didn't really "socialize" with any of our cowboy neighbors. That night as we lay down and tried to go to sleep, we realized that Hubby and my side of the camper was right next to our neighbors camp fire, and they were all sitting around it talking late into the night. And I mean LATE into the night...come 3 am, Hubby and I still were unable to fall asleep. It wasn't that they were crazy noisy, firing pistols off and hootin and hollerin, but they were definitely drunk and they were talking, laughing, and swearing. Hubby and I debated what to do. He finally says "I'm gonna go out there and ask if they can just keep it down a little" I'm frightened for his life! "Are you crazy? Have you seen how big they are? And they are drunk....They might kill you!" He started climbing out of bed and pulled some jeans on "It's after 3 am....the kids will be up as soon as it's light out..."
I laid there and prayed "Please God, don't let those big huge cowboys hog tie my husband and cook him over their campfire..."
After a very long couple of minutes, which I couldn't hear anything (I tried really hard), Hubby came back in. "What happened?" I asked. It was all of the sudden really quiet outside. Hubby says "I just asked them if they could keep it down and that was it".
Wow. I was amazed. That's all it took and now it was quiet.

The sun rose way too early the next morning and I stumbled out of the camper feeling like a cowgirl who got bucked off a wild bronc....well probably not but I thought I'd throw in a little rodeo analogy. I'm figuring that I at least looked that bad, because remember the little older lady I mentioned seeing at the cowboy neighbors campsite? Well, all 4 foot nothing of her greeted me good morning and then she said "I had the air conditioner on in my camper last night so I didn't hear anything. Did my boys keep you awake last night?" I didn't want to say anything bad. I had a feeling that these guys could make our stay miserable....a list of how they could do that started playing in my head....just the thought of them giving me the "stink eye" set my knees to shaking. She could see my hesitation, "It's alright you can tell me. I don't want my boys causin' no trouble" she said. "They were just a little loud by the campfire" I finally admitted. "It wasn't that bad". Just then, my two youngest complained that they needed to use the bathroom. So I excused myself.

When we returned from the bathroom I started getting ready to make breakfast. I came around the end of the camper to plug in my electrical cord for my griddle when I saw the three cowboys from next door. They were standing in the gravel road on the edge of our campsite. I stopped in my tracks. My heart stopped for a second and then started pounding. Like I said, all three of them were at least 6'4" or taller and rough looking. "Excuse me ma'am." Said the oldest looking one. I took a tiny step forward. All three of the enormous men had their hands in their jeans pockets. One of them I could only see the top of his cowboy hat because he was looking at the ground and kicking the dirt with the tip of his cowboy boot. "yes..." I said hesitantly. The oldest one shoved his hands deeper into his pockets and looked down at his boots and began kicking at the dirt also "Our Mama says that we need to apologize for keepin' you up last night." He continues to kick at the dirt..."so... we're real sorry..." the one next to him whose top of his hat I could only see before, takes a quick look at me in the eye and then looks back down and says "yeah sorry ma'am". The third one doesn't look like he wants to be doing this at all and doesn't say anything for a moment till his older brother elbows him. He also looks up real quick and says "sorry".
At that moment these three huge guys look like tots to me. I can picture them getting yelled at by their mama and having to apologize and then scurrying off to wrestle or throw rocks or poke dead animals with sticks or whatever little cowboys do when they are young.

We had a very nice stay at that campsite. Later we had some great conversation with the cowboys and their families. We got to see them "do their thing" at the rodeo the next day and it was absolutely crazy! I just want to add that our cowboy neighbors won their event....but were later disqualified. It seems that one of the brothers (I bet I know which one) actually bit the horse so they could get the saddle on.

Seeing how those cowboy looked like little boys after being scolded by their mama, was surprising. But the thing that put me in awe was the power that little woman had over those big men and the respect they obviously had (or maybe fear) for their mama.

heights

Yesterday, Lori and I came out to do a little yard work and this is what we found.
Mac and Daltyn sitting on the roof...just for fun.

Most of my friends know about my fear of heights (especially my camping friends).

I never really understood phobias before I realized I had one of heights. I would see these people on TV freaking out over a spider or public speaking or the color chartreuse and think "Oh come on! just get over it!"

Then Hubby and I took the kids to the Grand Canyon one year. I didn't feel quite right the entire time we were anywhere near that big hole. We were staying in a campground in Sedona and drove over to the Canyon a couple of times. On the last day of our visit, we were warned by the park rangers that a big snow storm was coming and we should head out. I don't remember exactly why but, we decided to take a short cut home. It looked like a perfectly respectable road on the map....

We turned off the highway onto a side road. We were enjoying the views, the kids were in the back of our full sized van watching a movie. Pretty soon the highway type road gradually turns into a not so nice two laned paved road then into a non paved road. Hubby and I agree that we have been on this road for what seems like a long time, it can't be that much further so we decide to continue. After a few more miles, the road starts to get even worse and we pass a small sign that says "authorized vehicles only". By now it's dark, the wind is starting to blow hard enough to feel it sway our mammoth van, and a sleety icy rain has started to fall. Now we are thinking that if we turn around it will take too long to get back and then we will be in trouble from the storm, besides, we've got to be getting close.

Then everything seemed to change suddenly. It must have been a combination of the snow that started coming down so heavily we could hardly see and it being pitch black outside. The next thing I realize is something doesn't look right outside. I tell Hubby to slow down (not that we were going all that fast because of the ruts in the road) and I look out my passenger side window. Through the swirling snow, I see that we are right next to the tops of some giant pine trees. When I smash my forehead against my car door window and look down I can't see the bottoms of these trees. I also can't see the road under our van. We are on the edge of a cliff. We are driving on a road that is winding down the side of a mountain and it has no guardrails!

I scream for Hubby to stop. With the heavy snow we can only see a few feet in front of us. The road is now more like a two track. Hubby and I roll down our windows to see if we could possibly back up. With the road being so narrow, the wind blowing so hard and barely being able to see the back side of our long van we decide we can only keep moving forward. We inch along the "road" and my heart is now pounding. The road continues to narrow to the point of Hubby having to roll down his window and pull in the side mirror so it doesn't scrape on the canyon wall. I still cannot see the road under our van when I look out my window. Then a sign appears ahead. The first sign we've seen in what seems like forever. My hopes skyrocket. But as it comes into view we read "Danger wash out area ahead". We can see that parts of the road are missing and the angle of the road slants toward the canyon below. Now I'm sweating and I can't breathe. I'm starting to shake all over and there is a rushing in my ears that matches the pounding of my heart. I start to cry...or actually I start to scream..."We are gonna die!" "We are going to roll off the side of this mountain crash into those trees below! No one knows where we are {the days before cell phones}. It will be weeks before they even realize we are missing. Even if we survive the crash we will freeze to death!" I'm hyperventilating. Mike tries to calm me down. He says something about scaring the kids, who up until this point, were clueless. They now look up from their movie and take off their headphones. I don't care. I'm out of control and I can't stop it.

Hubby talks calmly to the kids, telling them that everything is okay and keep watching their movie. He is telling me to breathe and take it easy while he slowly eases the van over the wash out area. It seems to take forever.

Eventually the road levels out and grows wider, and changes back again into a paved road. Once the road switches into two lanes we see a campfire. We stopped and after I finished kissing the asphalt, we ask the campers if there were anymore treacherous roads ahead. I am picturing myself snuggling up to one of the grizzly looking guys in his sleeping bags if there are. A trip that should have taken a little over 2 hours (if we had gone on normal roads) lasted twice as long.

My body has never reacted the same to heights after that. Anything having to do with heights sends my body into the same reaction. My heart starts pounding, my hands sweat, I start to hyperventilate, my body shakes, if I don't remove myself, I will cry uncontrollably. I can do nothing to stop these reactions.

I've discovered it doesn't even have to be me being up high. I get the same reaction seeing other people up high. It can be strangers. Even looking at pictures can make my body begin reaction.

My family seems to find entertainment in my misery.

here's my oldest tormenting me.....climbing trees on the campus on U of M...my heart is starting to pound now....

and here's a little boy in Sudan that Nae took a picture of. Don't know him or anything about him but it still makes my palms sweat.

some random guy mountain climbing out in Colorado. I felt nauseous the whole time I watched him.

Nae again, rock climbing. She either likes heights or like to take years off her dear mothers life.....

This will do it too...Tony on the trampoline

Oh! look at this one! Wait, that's my other phobia....watching my teenagers drive....excuse me while I hurl.