Wow! It the first day of March. Where have the first two months of 2007 gone already?

As I was fixing my breakfast this morning, I started thinking: I really only have a handful of weekday breakfast routines. This morning, I'm having two slices of raisin toast with cream cheese, a sausage patty and some fresh strawberries with Splenda. It's quick and easy to prepare, and tasty. Other mornings, I may have a bowl of cornflakes with sliced banana and a small yogurt; or an egg (scrambled or fried) with a slice of toast and a handful of grapes (or some other fruit I may have in the fridge). Those are usually the rotation.

On occassion, I'll throw in a bowl of oatmeal instead of cold cereal, or like yesterday, I'll break the yoke on the egg and throw it on two slices of bread along with some cheese and a couple slices of deli ham. Last week, I had a couple of tortillas left over from our Fat Tuesday dinner at the Mexican restaurant. I scrambled some eggs and put them on the tortilla with some cheese and salsa. Those were really yummy. Sometimes, when both John and I have the morning off (which happens so rarely), I'll fix biscuits and gravy, or pancakes and bacon, but usually, it's the same few things rotated.

Do you eat breakfast, and what do you normally have for breakfast?

Protected post update!

All of Iowa is bracing for another round of winter storms. They are predicting two more storms to pass through Iowa between tomorrow and Friday. There are still 100,000 homes without power. A few of the counties have no 911 emergency system because of their counties being without power. I know our county's 911 has generators because we sold them UPS's to protect their computers from the spikes when the generators kick in.

I am so thankful that we still have power and heat. There are an estimated 1500 in our town without power. While other counties were announcing where their shelters were, ours did not announce it until yesterday, after many had been without power for a couple of days.

I pray that we will be able to maintain our power still. We were without gas for a couple of days when we lived in Arkansas, but we had a fireplace and a heated waterbed at the time. When I stopped to buy ice melt from the local garden center today (which just happens to carry 40-lb. bags of the ice melt I like), they were talking about how Wal-mart was sold out of D-cell batteries and you couldn't find a generator for sale anywhere in the county today. Aye, yay, yay! Please, God, let us keep our power. We have gas heat here, but the thermostat and blower are electric. I don't know what we would do with our pets, either.

We had one customer who came in telling us about how her mom's power went out at first so Mom came to stay with her, then a couple hours later her power went out and they both went over to her brother's house after it got down to about 45° inside the house.

Please pray for those folks who don't have heat. It gets pretty cold in Iowa this time of year.

I am one of the lucky homes to still have power. We had a terrible winter storm yesterday. We haven't seen one like this in about 8 or 9 years. There was not church practically anywhere in town this morning. The county was declared in a state of emergency and people were told to stay indoors until after noon on Sunday.

It started out raining yesterday morning, but the ground was cold enough it was freezing as it hit the ground. That went on for a while, and the slushy rain just kept piling up. We debated closing the stores down for the day, but figured we were in already so what the heck. We did end up closing both stores early as the power kept cutting off and coming right back on. That's hard on computers and it started to get more and more frequent. Places in town had already lost power. We were watching the ice build up on the power lines across the highway and the lines kept drooping lower and lower. We watched a tree across the street continuously losing branches. It made us wonder how our house would look when we got home, being that we had two trees close to it in the front and side yards.

We left the truck parked in the garage and walked to work. The driveway is on a hill and we figured we'd probably be better off walking with the Yak Trax on our shoes than trying to get up an icy hill later. The walk home wasn't too bad. It was mostly slushy stuff. The trees all around us looked like a crystal forest. They were beautiful, but it was scary listening to the branches break and crash to the ground. K-CRACK!!! Sometimes it sounded like a shotgun going off.

We were about a block away from our house when I could see we had a couple of big branches down in our yard. There was a very large one sticking out into the street and I was going to try to pull it out of the street but it was too heavy and John said he wasn't going to get under the tree when the limbs were coming down like that. As we were just getting up on the porch we heard another K-CRACK!!! and a limb came falling from a tree across the street hitting the back end of the neighbors minivan. It wasn't long before he came out and moved his van out of the street.

I was frightened and fascinated by the storm at the same time. I stood out on the enclosed porch, where I had a good view of both of the trees in the front, listening for the eerie sounds of the limbs cracking and crashing to the ground. I'd come back in the house for a while, then go back out on the porch for a few minutes to watch. We were watching TV when I heard something that sounded like someone banging on the front door. No one uses our front door, and John said it sounded like a limb hitting the roof to him. Sure enough, it must have been a limb rolling down the roof, because immediately in front of the door was a limb that hadn't been there five minutes earlier, surrounded by thousands of tiny ice cubes that would have broken away from it as it came down.

I had gathered up all the candles I could find: a couple pillars, some tea lights, and many tapers (though I only had two taper holders). I put them in a basket along with a box of matches and a lighter. We were prepared for the power to go out.  I have an electric stove so I prepared supper early, wanting to be sure it got cooked while we still had electricity. We lost a few channels on cable, and lost the entire cable for a couple of minutes. We lost power several times but it was only for a minute at a time. My husband started getting irritated with me because I didn't seem to understand that the transformers would reset as soon as they realized there wasn't a ground there still. He explained to me, since I didn't grow up around here, that the trees hitting the power lies knocked them out temporarily, but the transformers reset as soon as the ground was gone.

The entire city of New Sharon, about 11 miles north of us, ended up without power and they opened a shelter for people who had now way to heat their homes. The closed down a portion of the highway on the other side of New Sharon because there were so many limbs in the road and they couldn't keep it clear. They came on the radio about 8 p.m. asking people to conserve water, not because the water was low but they wanted the fire departments to have plenty of water pressure.

It was definitely a little frightening, but also awesome experiencing God's power of nature all around  us. I cannot imagine how people manage to go without power or water for days, let alone months. We had a plan that if the power went out, we were going to shut ourselves up in the bedroom, snuggled under all the blankets in our flannel pajamas, with candles lighting and heating the room. It never did come to that, though.

I took a picture of the limbs in the front yard. I have to download it off my camera phone, and the cable to do that is at the office, so I'll try to get it posted tomorrow. I attempted to use the panoramic view, so we'll see how it actually managed to stitch together.

John has the limbs all stacked up on the curb side of the sidewalk now. He's shoveled the snow (we got about 3 inches overnight, but they had predicted 5-10") and ice off the walk. It's still snowing just a bit, but it's really light and doesn't seem to be doing much accumulating.

Pray for those in the Midwest who are still without power, particularly when it's so darn cold.

In recent posts, I had mentioned possibly giving up Xanga for Lent. Well, I have not. I'm still here. I am giving up dining out for Lent. No take out food, not fast food, no delivery, no restaurants period.

I am also making sure I spend at least 15 minutes a day with the Lord. I have gotten lax in this recently, so 15-30 minutes every day. This is actually what has been keeping me off Xanga the past week. I usually get on the Internet in th mornings, but lately I'm spending that time in prayer and the Word.

We did go out to dinner last night, as a last "hurrah" to tide me over until after Easter. John reminded me that his and his dad's birthdays are during this period so that must mean I won't be going out with them. At first I thought I would make exceptions for their birthdays, but later decided to stick to the original plan. I can make them special dinners at my house instead of going out, or they can take John out with them.

My husband has also been quick to remind me that the pledge is that I do not eat out. He can eat out all he wants. Yeah, like that's gonna happen.

 Happy Birthday, Ahn!

Ahn, the sweet Vietanamese lady that married my #2 brother, turns 23 today (at least by American standards, I'm told). She has learned a lot in the 3 years she's been in this country. I love her because she's funny and whitty. Even when she didn't speak English very well at all, her sense of humor shined through and won the hearts of her American in-laws. I know my sister and I consider her another sister in the family. She's truly been a blessing to us. And hey, she's got to have a good sense of humor to put up with my quirky brother. I love you both!

On a completely different note, I had another episode with acid reflux last night. This time it came up my nose - my left nostril is still burning in spite of my efforts to rinse it out after I emptied the contents of my stomach. That was at 4 a.m.

Happy Birthday, Micah!

Today, The Boy becomes a man chronologically, but he will always be my son, no matter how old he gets. I am so thankful to his Dad for making these kids a part of my life, giving me children where I otherwise might not have had any. They have been a joy in spite of any pain they may have caused.

The ring-bearer at our wedding. He's 3 here and that's his sister, Shannon, with her arm around his neck, back when they acted like they loved each other.

Cheerleading about age 12.

 Acting silly at the train station in St. Louis in 2002.

Not quite awake at Christmas a few years ago.

With his dad at Great Grandma's house. I think he was 13 here.

With his niece, my grandbaby, two years ago.

With his girlfriend when they visited us last summer. They are still together.

His senior pictures, with his first true love, the skateboard. Ha!

I kissed hubby before leaving the house today, wishing him a happy Valentines day. "Happy greeting card company day to you," he says. I look at him quizzically. "Well that's what it is," he defends, "a day invented by the greeting card companies to supplement slow sales between Christmas and Mother's Day."

As I promised, the photo of the Slim Jim bouquet I made for my hubby:

I was in the store when he came in, so I followed him to see his reaction, thinking I was all proud of myself for being so creative. His comment, "Great, lots of fat."

"What did you say," I asked, honestly not having heard his comment. He repeats it. "Fine, take them back, throw them away, I'm sorry that I tried to get you something you like." I'm starting to cry, truly upset that he couldn't see the effort. As I'm walking away, he's calling out behind me, "I appreciate the effort." Yeah, whatever. I am truly upset over what a big jackass he can be. I leave the store in a huff, on my way to pick up donuts for the training session we have this morning.

When I get back from the store, there is a computer-printed card on my desk, obviously made in Publisher or Word. In it, he has typed up "Valentines if 1 day a year. You are 365. I have 365 days open on my calendar for a Valentine. Can I pencil you in?" and he handwrites, "I love you even if you do try to keep me fat and happy - John."

So maybe he does have a tiny little romantic bone in his body, I think. I ask him how much of that saying did he write and how much was a ready-made greeting. About half, he says, "I wrote the beginning." Ok, that's the part I think is romantic (at least for him).

I've been married to him for nearly 15 years. I should know better. I guess one can always hope that tiny little romantic bone that gets lost in all that honest, logical crap that makes up the majority of my husband will show it's tiny self every now and then.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I gave the hubby a card, a Snickers heart and a dozen Slim Jim's (sorta). He loves Tabasco Slim Jim's, and I've been planning for at least a week now to buy a dozen of them from the convenience store across the street from our store and put them in a vase. I went by last night to buy them, and they only had 10 of the Tabasco-flavored ones left. He likes them spicy, and they had some samples of "hot" ones on the counter, so I taped a few of them together to make them longer. They kind of work because they droop over the lip of the vase a bit. I put them on his desk at work when I left last night. I'll post a pic of them later this morning if I manage to get in early enough to do so.

It's snowing!

We got 3-4 inches last night and are expecting another 2-3 today. I just spent 45 minutes shoveling the walks (with John's help). That is GREAT exercise, and really, I don't mind it because it doesn't feel like I'm exercising. Just the same, I'm ready for SPRING! I also think we'll look at the price of a snow blower at the end of winter, when they go on clearance. It would help get the job done faster, but then the exercise element won't be there either, so who knows. I kinda like the exercise that doesn't really feel like exercise.

I let John take his shower first. It helps if I cool down (yes, even after shoveling snow, I have to cool down) before I get in the shower. Elsewise, I'll still be sweating when I get out of the shower.

At least we didn't get 8 feet of snow like they did in New York.