Happy Day!

JB's mom has returned from a trip to South Florida. How wonderful to have her back in our home. The kids inundated her with stories and requests for games and books and anything they could think of. Abigail drew her a picture. The boys created a Manatile mansion in her bedroom (and she was such a great sport about it.) Scrubs sniffed her like crazy. All in all it was just wonderful to have her back.

The weather is still not great here. School is out again tomorrow. However, the roads to the airport were pretty good, and I had no trouble getting her this morning. She had been due in a week ago but this darn storm threw everything for a loop.

I'm not a science person. (I've pretty much decided I won't teach my kiddos science much past 4th grade.) So it was JB who explained to me why this ice storm happened here, in Tennessee, and we never experienced anything like this during our years in Minnesota.

The reason is that Minnesota is too cold for ice!

Now don't get me wrong. They can have ice. But generally, it doesn't really rain in Minnesota in the winter. But here, where the temperatures hovered so carefully right above freezing, days and days of rain followed by drops in the temperature left Tennessee covered in ice that wouldn't go away. Add to that the infrastructure not designed to support ice like that and it was a recipe for many, many days stuck inside the house.

We weren't stuck inside entirely. The kids could go in the backyard and play. But it was really impossible to drive anywhere. On Wednesday, during a lull in the storm, I decided to brave the roads and take the kids to Kroger and get their hair cuts. Both of these places were less than a mile from our house.

I wouldn't say it was a mistake, but I will tell you that I fell on my rear for the second time during that outting. JB said that I am the person he saw over and over and over again during the string of days he was putting in at the ER. Tons of broken bones from falls on the ice.

I pride myself on staying home and not trying to do too much. I didn't realize until this last week how much I count on our little outtings to help break up my motherhood routine. When your husband leaves at 6am and comes home at 8pm, that leaves you responsible to keep four children alive, fed, and relatively pleasant to be around, for 14 hours a day by yourself. That is a lotta hours without a single break for Chik-fil-A or even a speech appointment! Man oh man was I ready to get out!

I am very proud of myself, however, that during this storm I was basically able to keep up my triathlon training. I had to make a few changes (like running the stairs in my house one day instead of going on my 30 minute run) but overall, I managed to not miss too many workouts. I feel like I didn't really lose too much and today managed a 2 mile run, 15 minute bike, and 1/4 mile swim. I'm hanging in there!