26 February 2021

Mr. Brown came downstairs one morning two weeks ago and found this scene, with all of us hard at work:

Bobo was in school, Rosebud was working on her math workbook and I was at work.  All so industrious!

25 February 2021

Here is what morning scripture study looks like some days:

23 February 2021

 Last day of the unexpected ten-day school vacation.  Kids are still off because of plumbing issues at the schools.  This morning they blew bubbles and made lemonade and played croquet.  There's also been lots of video games, D&D, reading books and Legos.

Weather is back to beautiful.  I had the air conditioner on last night.  You'd never know that it was snowing four days ago.

17 February 2021

It started with freezing rain last Thursday - school was moved to virtual for Friday.  The roads (and my spring flowers) were covered in ice.

 The trees bent and broke.  Traffic stopped.  Church was canceled on Sunday.  Then we got five inches of snow, on top of the ice, which hadn't melted because the temperature hadn't risen above single digits for three days.

Monday was a holiday from school/work anyway, and then school was canceled for Tuesday and Wednesday.  Last night we got more icy rain, so there's a new icy crust on top of the five inches of snow, and new ice on the roads.  It was above freezing today so there is some melting happening.  School has been canceled for the rest of the week.  It's supposed to snow again tonight.

The power has been intermittent for many people that we know.  We have been fortunate that our power has stayed on the whole time so far, and that our house is warm.  We've complained about being cold, but our furnace has never stopped working.  Last night the water turned off, so this morning we set about figuring out how to melt and filter the snow for drinking water.  Thank goodness we got so much snow!  We are also using melted snow to flush the toilets.  The city says the water will be back no earlier than Friday - I bet it's longer.  I'm glad that our toilets are still flushing.

The kids found an icy slide as part of the drainage system in the green area at the end of our street and spent a couple days sliding down it.  Both Rose Pink and Bobo really like to play in the snow.  Bobo gets himself dressed for it and goes out in the backyard just to fiddle with things.  He brings me cool frozen stuff to the back door to show me (shut that door!) and broke a hole in the trampoline net when he punched it to get the ice off.  Nut Brown enjoys it but not as much, and Rosebud doesn't really want anything to do with it.  After almost a week of it, I think we are all about done though.  It has been beautiful and challenging.  A little ironic that 2020 started with isolation from COVID and 2021 has started with isolation from an epic winter storm.

14 February 2021

 Happy Valentine's Day!  It has been well below freezing for three days.  Everything is covered in ice, including my spring flowers and my winter garden.  It's drizzling again today and the roads and sidewalks are turning very slick.  Very un-Texas weather.  We are going crazy from the cold and from being largely stuck inside for three days.  It's not supposed to warm up for several more days.  I hope my peach trees survive.

Bobo in particular has gotten very bored.  He's been home from school all week with a head cold (not COVID, he got tested) and then to be stuck mostly inside for several days has tried his patience and now he is trying the patience of the rest of us, especially Rosebud.

Given all of that, Primary today was more stressful than usual.  But there was one sweet moment when we talked about witnessing about what God had done for us, and he wrote down immediately, "He has taken away my bad thoughts and bad dreams" and then witnessed to me verbally about what a blessing that was for him.  This is referencing his struggles with nightmares after a scary video he saw a couple weeks ago.  He and I talked about how he can turn things that are too scary over to God and give them to him, and he prayed about it, and I guess it must have been a good experience for him.  I'm so grateful to hear about the way that my kids can see God's love in their lives.

Rosebud contributed this sweet drawing of herself.

She's always cautious about identifying things that God has done for her (this is part of how we say prayers at night - 'what are you grateful for?') and I wasn't pushing her about it today, but then right before the lesson ended she burst out with, "Mom! A mom is a blessing!" and she wrote it down herself on her paper.