The stare down & no school AGAIN and a rant....

As I am sure many of you already know. We lucky folks in the midwest are FREEZING our tails off with below zero temps and bbbbrrrrrr freezing wind chills. So with all of that going on plus our bit of snow, our kids were out of school yesterday and today. Yesterday more because of all the blowing snow but today because of the frigid weather. We have found out that they have cancelled school for tomorrow as well. Our district already has Monday off for Martin Luther King Jr day so we will have our kids at home for a 6 day weekend. So by tomorrow I'll be going nuts!! It is just so cold they can't keep the schools warm plus half the buses won't start and the kids are standing and waiting for a bus that isn't coming because it won't start. This all adds up to be very dangerous for the kids. At this point 10 minutes outside with any skin uncovered results in frostbite.

I left the girls home by themselves yesterday and got into work for a few hours. They ended up closing at 4pm because we had zero customers all day. Really, no one came in! Shocking right?!

So, today the girls had orthodontist appointments at 9:15am - this was good because they weren't missing any school! Sure it is STINKIN' cold outside (-10 with -35 wind chills at 9am) but the roads are pretty much clear so we just run from car to building to keep from freezing. After ortho appointments we ran over to see my little sister for awhile before I needed to get into work. My girls were going to see Bride Wars at 1pm so we visited for awhile and then stopped to get Sonic for lunch before dropping them off at 12:30 for the movie. I was then going into work. The doors were still locked and the lights were off. A quick call to the owner to find out that the gal that opens in the mornings had not been able to get her car started and they had not been able to get anyone else to answer their phones. I decided that was fine and joined the girls for the movie. It was funny, cute and yes, I cried. We headed back to work and was able to get in. The kids that were working helped me get the few cakes done that was due for tomorrow and we headed to pick up a girl friend that is spending the night with Gab.

She lives out in the boonies (a fun term for the country). I always go slow down her road because there are always deer. Sure enough one crossed the road a bit in front of us. I stopped because there are always others following. Here was this deer not 20 feet from my car and he and I had a stare down. Me wondering if he is going to jump in front of my car and he wondering if I was going to running him down (cause you can just tell by looking at them what they are thinkin'). I quick yelled, get the camera and, of course, we were too late! There were other friends of his off the side of the road. They are always cool too see even when you see them all the time!! We had a good laugh about the stare down though.

OK, I must rant now. Anyone out there get their heat and electric bill for this month? We got ours yesterday. I screamed! Our bill was over $400!!!!! Folks that is $125 more than last month and we were gone for a week! How in the world do they jusitfy that??????? I have all but stopped using our dryer. I went from 18 hours a week of drying time to about 5 hours max. There is NO WAY that we doubled our gas use in the last month! To say I am shocked and mad is an understatement. I am trying to "go green" and be a good steward of what I have and then I get smacked with a huge bill from our energy company. I checked their website to see how "efficient" our house was compared to others in our area. Last month we were middle green and this month we had moved into the yellow. How does that happen if I am conserving energy? Our thermostat is programmable so that is a good thing. I simply don't know how to save any more money in energy. Do I start unplugging everything and plugging it back in when we need to use it? How annoying is that?! OK, done ranting (but I am still mad - just so you know).

Ya'll stay warm if at all possible and take care!

Hugs,

Jeanette

PS - I am getting into work tomorrow to finish up some cakes and then I have a hair appointment - I will get there even if I have to call on my deer friends to get me there!