Icing on the cake

As if last week wasn't exciting enough, well, all except for the quarantine I'm running here, it seems in 60-90 days we'll be getting cable, folks. And you know what that means....high speed internet! Silence the collective gasps, it is true, I do all my business and blogging on a dial up internet connection.

Here's how it all played out. It was Friday afternoon and my cell phone rang. Kevin.

"Honey! Get a pen and pad of paper and go out in the field, there's a Comcast truck over at the barn and some guy measuring. Go see what he's up to and get a contact name and phone number!"

I ran out of the house, paper and pen in hand, trucked my way across the field, only to see the cable guy go across the street, looking up at poles and wires and such, so naturally I followed him.

"Are you going to give us cable?" I asked in my most hopeful voice.

"I'm measuring for a business line for the barn, your neighbor called us for a business line." said my new friend Tony, looking like a deer in headlights.

"You mean my father-in-law?" wondering why he hadn't informed me of the wonderful news.

We figured out who called who and what was what and to make a long story short I ended up standing in the hay field talking to the lady I needed to talk to on Tony's cell phone. She informed me that she was starting the process and they'd be putting in a residential line to our house and in 60-90 days we'd be up and running.

Over out 10 years here I can't tell you how many junk mail solicitations we've gotten from the cable company and we've called them many times in response. Men (plural here) have been out to measure, only for us to be told we can't get it. Nothing, nada, zippo, zilch, I-know-you-want-it-and-we-have-it-but-we're-not-gonna-give-it-to-you, sorry sucker, is always the response. Clearly it's a case of one hand not knowing what the other is doing.

I suppose this is just one byproduct of the downturn in the economy and the virulent spread of Verizon Fios in the area, that the cable company is hurting enough to be willing to come bury more cable out here for the country folk. I for one will not complain.

Word for the week: buried

It's been quite a week, where everything that could have happened, seemed to have happened all at once. First we were buried under at least 8" of snow, an amount we hadn't seen in at least 5 years, maybe 10. Then I was buried in yarn, with order after order throughout the week and a flurry of emails, inquiries and even the possibility of some exciting press all thanks to that generous outside source. I know not to count my chickens too early, but if it happens you'll be the first to know.

As a result I became enlightened by the notion of networking and how powerful it really is, but I first had to be shown. (It's at this point that I ask you to not make fun of me for having grown up in Missouri,the "show me" state--oh the irony.)

We've been buried in blankets as well, the girls were so much sicker than I originally thought. We found out yesterday that Allie has strep and Lauren has had the flu since Monday. No wonder she was bawling about a cartoon.

I've also felt buried in the generosity of friends. One who, when I announced I was popping over for a visit promptly baked cookies for us and made me take them all home. I swear, I never leave her house empty handed. And another, whose exhuberant praise and encouragement overwhelms me, but at the same time keeps me moving gently along in my own backward, naive sort of way, making me ever so grateful for the chance to follow my heart....

So that's where...

I decided to investigate where a rash of sales and shop views came from this past week that have kept me on my toes and crocheting away like crazy. I often wonder, where do these people come from and how do they find my shop? Is it something I'm doing or some wonderful outside source? Thanks to the new Google Analytics function Etsy has added to our shops I can now see that this last week's sales have largely come from the latter. A huge thanks to the curator of this wonderful blog who wrote this lovely post about her new little one who just so happens to be wearing a pair of the booties above.

What a gorgeous blog--one day I aspire to such greatness; sponsors, giveaways, a general knack for knowing what people like and how to make it all look. Which brings me to my next tease, I'm conspiring with a friend, cooking up a little contest of sorts, complete with free stuff, a fun experience and maybe I'll have some giveaways of my own to kick it all off. Stay tuned...I'm branching out and it's all new territory...

The great big meltdown

The fun was bound to end, it was inevitable, and just as the snow has started to melt, so has the family begun its big meltdown, one by one, we're dropping like flies.

It all started yesterday when Lauren came down with that recurring high fever/sore throat stuff that Allie had a week or so ago but someone let her play in the snow yesterday anyway, dosed up on Tylenol, enough to give her that false sense of feeling mostly well again, I mean really, how often does it snow this much here? But after she'd been sledding and was coming around the corner of the house with tears streaming down her face, and sobs erupting from her chest I knew it had worn off.

"I'm just sad about so-and-so-the-horse on Back in the Barnyard (cartoon) mommy", she cried.

"What?"

"Such-and-such threw him up in the air and if he had fallen he would have hurt himself, but he didn't fall he was okay, but it was mean and I'm sad because he could have gotten hurt so I just think of whosit the pig being thrown up in the air and landing with his hands on his hips and it makes me feel better", she manages a smile.

"Oh, I see, why don't you come inside honey, I think it's time for more medicine."

"Okay, mommy, I'm comin'", still choking back tears.

We had a discussion about what's real and not real again, and that make-believe characters don't really get hurt, of which she professed to be fully aware. Perhaps it was just so I could make sure I was fulfilling my momly duties and help her through an emotional state rather than blowing it off. I would have been more concerned if she hadn't rebounded when the medicine kicked in, which of course she did and all was well again until later in the evening when Kevin experienced the whole saga all over again.

"Have you taken Lauren's temperature lately-she's in there sobbing about so-and-so horse on that stupid cartoon!" he exclaimed, quite peeved about the whole thing and thoroughly unempathetic, like how dare she get emotional over something so trivial.

"I know, I know, this has been happening all day and I just didn't tell you because I knew you wouldn't understand, she's just sick and I have her medicine right here, she'll be just like new in a half an hour."

"Okay, because this ain't right!"

"Here, babe, take this and have a little sip of water."

And it's right here where I flash forward to the teenage years and all the wasted tears that are to come, and how many girls outings we'll have to have and how many times we'll have to ship the boys off fishing or chopping wood or repairing or building just so we can be uninhibited, unhindered and hopefully talk through a good deal of it.

It wasn't all like that yesterday though, here she is in one of her brighter moments, being pulled by the go-cart round and round, one of the many perks of living in the country and having a big place to play.

I mentioned that the whole family is on the downturn, I now have a sore throat, John isn't quite himself, says his tummy hurts and he thinks he played too hard in the snow, Allie's tonsils look like grape tomatoes and the worst part was Kevin throwing up at 2 a.m. Not again. A big part of me thinks we just played too darn hard. Clearly we can't handle our snow!

I've completely forgotten about Spring

Scenes from a snow day

And then it snowed

Flipping the calendar to March early has backfired. School is already called off and they're predicting a sizeable snowfall overnight. The kids have made numerous snowmen (all in the same spot, they keep chopping parts of the same one off and rebuilding), snow angels like crazy, pelted each other with snowballs (it's a great packing snow), and what makes Kevin and I laugh the most is when we see each of them flat on their bellies with their hands behind their backs, straining their necks and licking the snow as if they're seals or something. We've been watching them out the window like it's T.V.

Several things happen when it snows this much in central Virginia. First, there is no milk or bread in the grocery stores, there's a run on all the essentials with the first call for flurries. It's probably just as well people stock up and stay off the roads because if you venture out you'll see a car in the ditch every hundred feet or so. And lastly, school is called off well ahead of time, even if there's a chance it'll be melted by morning. This time I think we'll wake up to lots of snow.

So we dragged out all the mismatched gear that accumulates from year to year of snowless winters and when I informed Allie that the snowpants that were in her size were some of John's old black ones she about had a hissy fit and threatened to only wear pink. Of course my response was that she'd have to stay in and in about five minutes the color seemed not to matter. Usually there's enough stuff to go around that everyone can be covered. The years where I have each child completely outfitted and matching there is no snow. Not a single flake.

Sunny loves it and doesn't know what to make of it at the same time. The kids were feeding her snow and she acted like it was bones.