(Non)Winter (Non)Weather

I never figured myself for one of those crotchety old windbags who spends all her spare time complaining about the weather, and yet here I am, spending all my spare time complaining about the weather. In large part because the winter we've had has been so weird that I'm not even sure what season it is right now. It's 60°F outside right now. I mean, honestly. All the trees are starting to bud. I can see pollen in the air. I've had a sinus situation going on since August, when Hurricane Irene hit, and there is no foreseeable end in sight, because it hasn't been cold enough for long enough to kill whatever winter mold I'm allergic to, and now I'm getting smacked in the face with the spring stuff that sends me into my own personal circle of hay fever hell.

But that's not why I'm really gretzing.

   

We had snow back in October, right before Halloween. We were grossly underprepared, as per usual. Shae didn't have snow boots or a new coat or mittens or any of that stuff. She went out to "play" in the snow in her pajamas and galoshes that were a skosh too small. I was mortified, as you can imagine, especially because I had all my Christmas shopping basically done at that point, but I wasn't prepared for winter. The very next weekend, she got two new coats and a pair of snow pants from my mother-in-law, and two pairs of long johns from my parents, and some nice gloves from LL Bean that remind me a bit of my old Freezy Freakies from back in the '80s, and a nice pair of fuzz-lined boots that I deliberately bought a size too big so she could put on two pairs of socks and thermal underwear and still get her boots to close properly.

   

And then ... it basically stopped being winter. These pictures are from almost a month ago, February 12th, the last time it snowed in these parts. The time before that, it was the end of January. The time before that was ... Halloween. That's it. Three snows in one winter, if you define the winter as "whenever it starts snowing to whenever it stops snowing," as they do in Syracuse. I mean, I freaking HATE winter, but even I am like, "The HELL?" Now it's March, and today it's 60°F, and my Weather Channel iPhone app is calling for high temperatures of 60°F or higher for seven of the next ten days, with an average high of 58°F.

   

So why am I complaining, you ask? Aside from this upper respiratory clusterduck that I have going on? BECAUSE THOSE GOSH DARN BRAND-NEW BOOTS DON'T FIT ANY MORE, and she's only worn them TWICE. That's why. Stupid weather.

Here Come The Sobs

OH. MY GOD. YOU GUYS.

I know it's been like two weeks, and I have so much to talk about! I could tell you all about school -- which, BTW, I should probably have written the last part of that last sentence as "... I have so much about which to talk," but whatever -- or I could tell you about work or I could tell you about my very recent truly traumatic experience at kindergarten (!!!) orientation (???) or I could tell you about how my neighbors' approximately 178 kittens have been hanging out on my porch making me pretty much The Simpsons' Crazy Cat Lady.

But.

Instead let me tell you about how a quick, spur-of-the-moment decision to play dress-up with my kid just about gave me a nervous breakdown. How about that, instead?

You may remember that approximately 142½ years ago -- okay, it was 2½ years ago, but it FEELS like it was very very long ago -- Shae was the flower girl in my sister's wedding. She wore a love white dress that was about eleventy sizes too big because she was two years old then, and the dress was a size 4T, because that was the best we could do. Shae's just about a month shy of five years old, and she's LITERALLY four feet tall now, and she wears a size 6 or a 7 because we need everything to be long enough to cover her ankles and her belly button, but I was looking for something in her armoire at bedtime -- don't ask me what, because I can't remember -- and I caught a glimpse of Ye Olde Flowere Girle Dresse out of the corner of my eye, and I know, "What the heck? Let's see if it still fits!"

  

And lo and behold,whaddaya know? It still does! It's significantly shorter than it used to be -- way back when, it went almost down to the floor, and now it's above the knees, and it looks kind of like some kind of empire-waisted babydoll thingy, and it's definitely tight in the armpits because Shae's shoulders are broader than they used to be -- but we could zip it up fine. She had room in it, even. And while she was twirling around her room and putting on her white Easter shoes from last year (the ones that definitely DON'T fit any more, and can I just tell you how much I HATE buying white shoes every Easter?), I got what I thought was a brilliant idea.

  

I got out my veil, from my wedding ensemble, which we played with before. And I don't know how it happened, I must have stopped paying attention for a second, or I blinked, or something, but when I looked again ...

  

 ... my little girl was standing there ...

  

 ... with chocolate still on her face from an ice cream sandwich she had eaten earlier ...

 

... and she was about to get married. And I needed to lie down for a while.

  

WHAT IS HAPPENING? HOW LONG HAVE I BEEN AWAY?

Blur

You guys, I DON'T EVEN KNOW.

I'm really sorry about all the weird lapses in posting but I am not myself these days. I knew that grad school was going to be hard, but what I didn't realize what that it wasn't going to be the classes that would kill me, but the scheduling. At least so far -- I have one class at the moment, and I love it, and I think I'm doing well, so I can't really complain there (although check back with me next week, after my exam tonight).

It's the SCHEDULE, you guys. It's killing me. Two days a week, I have 16-hour days (to which my mother is already saying, "Yeah, AND?"). I am not used to 16-hour days, at not least like this. And yes, it's only two days a week, but by the time I get home I'm usually so hopped up on adrenaline and caffeine and this buzz from learning that I can't get to sleep right away, and then I have homework and whatever on the other nights, and I have these really strange fever dreams and whatnot, so I don't really sleep all that well as a general rule, and so by the time 3:00 rolls around on a Friday afternoon, I am lucky if I am not passed out face-down at my desk, drowning in a puddle of my own drool.

You think I am exaggerating, but I assure you, I am not. Sometime after lunch on Fridays, everything is absolutely HYSTERICAL, to the point where reading a cheese wrapper has me in such giggle fits that I start hyperventilating. You guys, I DON'T EVEN KNOW. My entire life is pretty much a blur, right now.

= = = = =

Because I know what my audience wants, and it isn't a detailed re-telling of my first-world white-girl problems-of-the-week, here are some pictures of other things that have been going on. I'm sorry these are all Instagrammed cell phone photos, but you're lucky I even have time for this. I just want to spend my weekends either in my bed or eating pie -- or, ideally, both at the same time -- so that I even remember to take my phone with me is basically nothing short of a miracle, right now.

 

Swim lessons are still happening. Shae is doing great, although I think you can see in this picture that she is growing out of all her bathing suits right in front of us. STOP THAT, KID.

   

We found a nearly-13-year-old box of Cream of Wheat in the back of the cupboard. Sadly, this is probably not the oldest food item in my house. I'm pretty sure that I still have canned goods that were part of a gift basket from my bridal shower. Hey, you NEVER KNOW when you're going to need a 30-year-old can of clams to feed the zombies during the end times.

    

They did a chick-hatching project at school, and my husband just rolled his eyes at me when I said I wanted to raise chickens in the back yard. I mean, IT'S LIKE HE DOESN'T EVEN TAKE ME SERIOUSLY ANY MORE.

   

Chewbacca got a hair cut. Hipster child is unimpressed.

   

With under two months to go until Shae's big 0-5 birthday (!!!!!) (?????) (who the hell let THAT happen?!), we finally took the siderail off her bed ... the same day that we put these sort of super-smooth, "microfiber," kind of almost satiny sheets on her bed. It's like we WANTED her to slide right onto the floor or something. But so far she's managed to resist the law of gravity and stay put during the night. Tucking her sheets and comforter under the mattress like some kind of deranged ghetto sleeping bag is probably helping.

= = = = =

So. There you go. BASICALLY NOTHING IS DIFFERENT, except I'm like 482% more tired, and about 926% more likely to start randomly quoting Jack London stories at you with only the slightest provocation. (Or, in other words: it's a Wednesday, isn't it?)

Convergence Point

It's weird walking around campus on my way to class, and not just because I'm an ancient, elderly, crotchety old crone surrounded by nubile little 20-year-olds in their Uggs and their AE hoodies and their bare midriffs even when it's like 9° and their skinny jeans that are so tight that I want to run up to them like some kind of religious evangelical with illustrated pamphlets about the dangers of yeast infections. Because seriously.

No, that's not why things are strange, although my puffy down coat and my sensible shoes and my tendency to dress like my own grandmother are certainly not helping things. Mostly I am finding myself slightly wigged out because I keep running into people I know, people I haven't seen in a long time, and I just don't know who I'm going to run into next.

I picked this particular college for graduate school largely because their M.Ed. program is well-regarded -- my aunt, herself a teacher, is the one who recommended it -- and also in part because it is significantly less expensive than other programs I looked into, and while I may be insane, I am not stupid. Since I had to take out student loans in order to pay for everything, I couldn't really justify the higher price tag for the big deal, big name, big ticket, big city school.

Also: that other program was entirely online, and let's face it, I simply cannot be trusted to maintain my focus for any length of time when I am in such close proximity to LOLcats.

So in addition to quality, cost, and actually being in a classroom, the one other thing that I considered was location. This school is about halfway between my house and my parents', and when I have classes at night, I can get there from work in just about an hour. This is wonderful, because it means that my days don't need to be any longer than they already are. (My night classes go from 6-9 twice a week, so those days are basically 16 hours long, but at least I have time in between work and driving and class to sit down somewhere and have dinner like a civilized person.)

But one of the things I never thought to consider is that going to a local college means that there would be the distinct possibility that other people might be choosing the college for the same reasons. It's close to where I grew up -- which means it's also close to where I used to be on the Y swim team ... which may explain how it turns out that my former swimming coach from 20-some odd years ago is now my academic advisor.

It also makes it close to where a lot of my family lived at one time, and still lives ... which may explain how it turns out that one of my cousins, who I last saw 13 years ago when my husband and I were in marriage preparation class, is also a student there.

Now, it's highly likely that these things are just coincidences. I mean, I didn't grow up in that big a town, or anything. But what are the odds that of all the gin joints in all the world, so to speak, that I would run into two people from past like that within just a few days of each other? Is this place some sort of a convergence point for all the "lost memories" of my past? Who else is there that I might run into?

Wummer

"Wummer" was the alternate suggestion for "S'Winter" (again, TM Phineas & Ferb), and since these pictures are from the same day, I figured I'd just go with it. As should you, if you know what's good for you.

I still have to finish going through all the pictures from last Saturday when it snowed -- I got as far as picture 92, but I took more than 250 -- but I had homework due for class on Monday. HOMEWORK. That's such a weird concept after 16 years of no homework.

Took this picture with my cell phone, and it's lightly processed (softening filter and then whatever it is that Instagram does), but it's still one of my favorites from the day. I am not a huge fan of snow, but I really love how Shae gets SO EXCITED when it comes.

And as much as I am still undecided on the hot pink snow pants -- because DEAR LORD ARE THEY BRIGHT -- they sure do make for some spectacular snow angels. (Also, you can see a bit of green hood peeking out -- that's from a 15-year old Eagles sweatshirt that's, like, 4th generation inherited, and Shae recently said it was her favorite shirt in the world.)

But this -- THIS is the best part of a snowy weekend day. When you have to get up for work in the morning and you have to deal with traffic snarls and the like, you can't really enjoy a snow day in quite the same way that you can when it's a Saturday and you can wake up gradually and stuff yourselves full of homemade chocolate chip and/or blueberry waffles and crispy bacon and tea and hot cocoa before you go out to shovel and play.

Maybe if it snowed more often on weekends when we don't have to rush around, I could learn to love the snow. (But probably never the hot-pink snow pants.)