Aaah, the last entry of stupid Smarch, with its stupid Smarch weather (what is Smarch? You must not know your "Simpsons").
It started snowing at 11ish last night. By this morning there was a centimeter of snow on the ground and it was still snowing. Mother earth was warm enough to stave off an accumulating mess. Doug was disappointed, as was Jessica: With all this snow we've had this year, there wasn't a single snow day at school. A delay or two for a couple hours... but no official snow days.
How do you get 100 million inches of snow and not get a snow day at all? Go figure. Anyway -- Jessie's doubly disappointed because her birthday is June 11, and school with no snow days gets out June 10th. She wanted it to be on her birthday so she'd be the queen of the world.
Can't say as I blame her. Queen for a day at school and at home is pretty sweet. She'll be 11 on the 11th, so it's her magic birthday. Geoff's is next year. So pretty soon all the magic birthdays will be over. Sigh.
I've been sending out more resumes, not really seeing anything I'm qualified for. Doug found some stuff on line that he saved for me. Director of an IT department for a north shore school district. He thinks I'm qualified. I love that my husband thinks I'm smart and qualified but baby, I'm so NOT qualified for a position like that.
So I keep pounding the cyber pavement. We'll see what happens.
I had a great discussion with my neighbor when I took the dogs out this morning. He's clearing a ton of land right behind my house (his property) and he wanted to make sure the property line was where he thought it was and that we were aware of what he was up to.
He is a mason and has a ton of equipment, but all of it is sitting in his driveway and it's making his wife crazy. The kids have nowhere to ride their bikes (they have a huge driveway, so you can imagine how much equipment he has)... and she just hates looking at dirty beat up equipment like that. So he's going to make a turn-around on the trail, loop around behind my house in front of the old mill foundation on his property (he owns the four acres and a bunch of history back there) and make it so all the equipment and trailer are parked behind my house, off his drive. Initially, it kind of broke my heart that all his stuff would be behind my house, but he told me he wants to put up a fence "so you don't have to look at all my shit."
Sweet. A fence! Something to keep my dogs in the yard and I don't have to pay for it. Plus, if we put up our above-ground swimming pool, we'll only have one area to fence instead of two! Bonus.
The one thing this does is it will mean we can't buy some land from him later if we have some money. I wanted to buy about an acre from him at some point so we had more area. But his plan prevents that from ever being a reality. In fact, he wouldn't be able to do what he wants to do if we bought land from him, he'd be stuck with what he has because of the way the property goes. So it is all the best for him and I'm cool with that.
One of the things that I really want to put out in the back of the house is an outdoor firepit/fireplace. Nothing fancy, just an area that is safe to have an open fire in on those nights when backyard camping and local hanging out is more fun that watching TV... I need to contact the fire department and just ask if this is totally legal or not. Knowing this town it probably isn't. So is it better to ask permission or forgiveness after several months of fun fun fun when someone finally drops a dime on us. Someone would probably drop a dime.
The people on the other side of the pond burn stuff all year long, and in the summertime they have bonfires in their yard, their kids and the neighbor kids running around Lord of the Flies style in the darkness, yelling and playing. No one has narked on them yet. I wouldn't want anything bonfire sized, just a nice camp size with rocks around it and maybe a fire ring, some benches, a place to rest that bottle of beer whilst hanging with some pallies.
I'm not sure what I'd have to put in the bottom (sand? cement?) to protect the ground from the heat, and I know during a drought we'd be forbidden from burning anything. I've looked around online at stuff, and most everything is custom made and just too damn fancy for my tastes. We're Cletus and Brandine over here, not JFK and Jackie.
I mentioned it to Steve the neighbor guy. He was psyched and thought it a great idea (I'd mentioned this to him this past summer when they moved in and he was psyched). He's been burning the cut wood and the debris from his clearing efforts out in the woods, and I told him to save some of the log-stuff for us, that way he didn't have to spend the time dragging it out to the woods to burn... and it would provide us with a start wood-wise once we get the firepit/place built.
Plus, him being a mason... I bet he has surplus stone all the time and we could perhaps get some from him. A lot of the stuff I've looked at online has been too damn fancy and expensive. I want to be able to build something ourselves, because hell, it's gonna get all sooty anyway... why have some gorgeous decked out brick thing?
Jack puppy has spent the last three nights out of his kennel and in the bedroom with us. He's still a little jumpy and confused, but it beats the hell out of him barking all night. I normally sleep with the shade up behind my head so I can watch the stars (or snow) depending on what's going on. So he took it upon himself to stand on my head and look out the window at two points in the past few days. The curtain has come down. He's still a bit jumpy and confused. When we turn out the light to go to sleep, he jumps up on the bed with a toy and wants to play. So we're trying to convince him to either lay the hell down or get the hell off. Eventually he goes to sleep on the floor.
It's kind of weird... I got up to go to the bathroom and he was scared and confused. I had to spend an extra five minutes patting him and coaxing him back to sleep. Kinger on the other hand, I could kick and trip over his fat ass (and I do on an almost nightly basis) and he barely lifts his head. Jack will someday be as relaxed as Kinger. That day may be a long time in coming though. I can't believe he's about a year old now. He's a good size, but I think he's not quite done in the growing department.
He's still too chewy with toys, pens, pencils, paperwork, bills etc... to be left out of the kennel during the day when we're not here. So when we go out he goes in. He doesn't like it one bit and whines... tries to walk the other way and ignore us when we tell him it's time to get in the kennel. For a little while there he was going and lounging in it when the gate was open and I thought that was great... showing us he knows where his 'place' is. But he's done with that.
He's under my chair right now which makes it very difficult for me to get out of here and get on with my day. But I have to... Look out Jack puppy! Mom's gotta move! Grocery store! More dishes! More laundry! More vacuuming! Gotta get to it. Yay me.
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