My poor blog has been sadly neglected. I have a job. Well, a paying job, in addition to all the other non-paying jobs I have. I'm a tutor and assistant director-in-training for a private tutoring center here in Anderson. It's the perfect job, I think. I love working one on one with the students and the timing still allows me to homeschool Jacob. I haven't had much time for anything else, though. I suspect that will change as the training subsides and I'm just tutoring. I have 2 students now and will have 3 more by next week.

I realized the other day, as I was chauffeuring another Arnold child to his destination (one of these people needs to find the time to get something besides their driving permits), I realized that January 19th had slipped by without notice from me. Perhaps because it fell in the middle of my first work week, when my brain was filled with Orton training, Geometry tutoring, and the proper pronunciation of the letter 'b'.

January 19th seems like just another day to most people, but it was the day my father died in 1999. I was exactly 25 weeks pregnant with Jacob at the time. I'd almost lost the baby a few months earlier and I remember so clearly not knowing if I should cry outloud, like I really needed to, or try to hold all my grief inside. I was terrified of losing Jacob, too.

I never, in a million years, imagined that my father would be gone when Chris retired and we moved back home. I always felt lucky, being not only the oldest child, but the oldest grandchild. I was lucky with my grandparents, all four were with me until I was a young adult, when I lost my first grandparent on my 23rd birthday. I still miss them but feel that I have a good sense of who they all were, I got to hear their stories from *them*, not passed down as family lore. Jacob and Lauryn did not have that with their grandfather. All they know of him is what we have told them. Brianna and Chase remember him some, and although Reid knew him, he hardly remembers him at all. That makes me incredibly sad, especially since their other grandfather died unexpectedly just 6 weeks after my dad. The children lost both grandfathers in such a short time.

So January 19th slipped by me this year. I felt a little relieved once I realized it, since that day usually triggers a vague sadness in me all through January, until I look at the calendar and see the 19th looming and can pinpoint the sadness. It's a sad day.

Mostly, I am just amazed that I've lived 12 years without my Daddy. How can that be?

January 30th

Ahhhhh! They were hidden under all that snow.

Scout and Ranger

Too many snow days

It's deja vu all over again!

Didn't I just write a post about snow? As in it was snowing at our house? It happened again. This is becoming embarrassing. For years, as in all their lives, I've knowingly told my children to enjoy the snow in Maryland because it rarely snows in South Carolina. I told them they could go years without seeing snow. So far they've seen 8" of snow at our temporary home this past February and *3*, count 'em *3* snows here in Anderson in the past month. This latest snow was a big one in that it snowed all over the southeast. We didn't really have that much - 5-6" in our yard, but the sun has not come out and the temps have stayed low (17 degrees tonight, yikes!) so the snow is not melting quickly like it usually does in these parts. Tomorrow is the third school snow day. Which is fine with me - but might not be quite so fine when they have to make up those days! I think I'll just be like Scarlett O'Hara and worry about that tomorrow.

So here you go, pictures of snow in the South. In no particular order. It's gorgeous. I never get tired of it. Oh, and since Jacob's English lesson today was on plagiarism, I'd better cite my source and say that my title was originally and supposedly said by Yogi Berra.

Lauryn built the World's Smallest Snowman and named him Bob.


Here we are (minus Brianna - at Winthrop - and Mom - taking the picture - on the way to The Fox for dinner. An advantage of being close to downtown: walkability.


From the driveway


Here's something you don't see every day.


Snow on the air conditioner. That'll cool you down. hahahahaha


Ranger and Maxie playing in the snow, having flashbacks to Maryland. Her Royal Scoutness wanted no part of it.


Dogwood tree


House


Lauryn out front before the snow stopped.


View from our front door.


Backyard


Ranger wondering if he's back in Maryland. Remembering Snowmageddon of 2010.