Kathleen's Korner at TheStidhams.com

A good day for some quiet musing…

while I listen to some Irish ballads, trying to learn the tunes so I can play and sing a little bit on Friday.

while the great galoot runs around the house, looking in the windows, hoping I will forget it’s raining and come play outside.

while the trees sway, now gently, now vigorously, shedding the rain from their strong branches and needles.

while the laundry dries and the kitchen waits for a quick clean-up.

I am motivated to work on some garb for the children, might do some research into that later this evening; for now, I think I will sort through a few more items in boxes, trying to minimize the clutter and maximize the usefulness of what I keep.

G and I are reading good books about Merlin by T.A. Barron. The Lost Years of Merlin is the name of the series, and I highly recommend it for a reading level of about 5th-6th grade and up. Younger children might enjoy having it read aloud, although some of the parts are full of suspense and sad I believe they are no worse than C.S. Lewis’ Narnia series.

M’s science fair project with his friend went well. They did all the work in class, and managed to put together a fine poster. I think they learned a good bit, too! The community scientist was very complimentary of their work, and they seemed to enjoy explaining what they had done.

G didn’t do a project this year — we didn’t get the form filled out in time. Just as well, since his class just completed a multi-week project of their own!

Today, he was supposed to go to a movie with his grandmother, but appears to have a stomach bug, so ended up coming home almost right away. He is still having trouble keeping things down, but is resting so should be better by tomorrow. Something like this has been going around the school the last couple weeks, so I am not really surprised, just annoyed.

I am going to try once again to learn SQL and php or perlscript, to try to make a dynamic website for my greeting cards… this is a big project, but I have the time, the ability, and an expert “on-call” as I need him. I think if I just focus on manageable segments (learning just the parts I need to know at this time) that the task will be easier. I can add on the rest if I am that interested!

The dogs needed to go out at three-thirty this morning. And there was a thin layer of white stuff all over the ground. Grumble, cold, grumble.

At five-thirty they wanted fresh water — their bowl was empty. I looked out the window. Still white stuff, and the floors were so cold…

At seven-twenty T was talking to the boys who were thinking they might not have school today… What? I pulled myself out of my much-interrupted slumber and sat up. Yep. Snow.

So I hopped online. While the now very fluffy snow fell increasingly thick and insistently. School hadn’t even been delayed [sigh of relief], and T poked his nose outside and said it was not going to stick.

Obviously, we still have power. Snow continues to fall in flurries, now sounds like it’s mixed with some rain. It’s not sticking to the roads or driveways, and is melting pretty well on other surfaces also. Which pleases me, because I really want enough plums to make jelly this year! And with the blossoms appearing yesterday, the timing of the cold could hardly have been worse.

We’ll see how the garden fares. Hoping my happy little pollinators won’t be set back by this weather!

Meantime, on my agenda for today is transferring most of my business’ website to the server that hosts our family website; dishes, laundry, sweeping; and working on my handwriting. Yes folks, I am doing the old-fashioned handwriting drills in a drive to make it easier to write by hand, and to make the lettering I do for art projects a little neater. We’ll see how that goes, too.