Lots of Frozen

It has been COLD and WINTERY and FROZEN.  My last post was on Tuesday of the week that school was cancelled every day all week! 

 

 Monday was icy, Tuesday and Wednesday was snowy, Thursday and Friday was bitterly cold on top of snow that still hadn’t been cleared from most residential and rural roads.  I LOVED it!  I am now caught up on Downton Abby, I have been working on lots of neglected sewing projects, and I practiced enough that I felt ready for last night’s CCO concert. 

While the outlying roads were snow packed, the main roads were cleared pretty quickly and we went to St. Louis last Saturday, the 8^th, to attend the temple and to take Noah to look for bald eagles along the Mississippi River. 

 

   There is a particular place on the river called Chain of Rocks that is literally a line of rocks (called a shoal) across the whole river 

 

 The shoal made navigating this portion of the river very tricky until the Corps of Engineers built a bypass canal about 30 years ago. And, it churns up the water so the fish-eating birds (bald eagles, gulls, etc.) love to feed there.  There is an old bridge that is now part of a pedestrian/bike trail that we walked out on to get a better look.  

 

 We saw lots of gulls and chunks of ice floating in the river and we got kind of FROZEN and we only saw three bald eagles flying in the air.  None perched and none up close.  Noah saw the first.

 

  Another interesting site in the middle of the river are these water intakes that were built in the late 19^th century to help boost the St. Louis water supply. They were used in conjunction with the tall towers - called standpipes - that still exist in St. Louis.  Below is the link to a brief explanation about them.

 http://www.builtstlouis.net/watertowers/watertowers1.html

 They are not used any longer but there they still sit in the middle of the river.  Access to them was only by water and then by climbing up some very tiny metal rings imbedded in the wall.  Scary.

Steve and I celebrated our 39^th wedding anniversary on the 31^st of January.  These are the flowers he gave me.  

 

I was all set to blog last Sunday afternoon and I came home to a darkened computer screen!  What the heck?  At first, I thought it might be the monitor or the cable but it was ultimately diagnosed as the computer couldn’t boot up.  Oh my goodness, were our computer issues never going to end???  Sigh.  But, when I took it to Personalized Computers on Monday, the computer was fine!  What happened is that Steve installed a new external hard drive a couple weeks back and when I pushed “restart” on the computer last Sunday morning, the computer tried to go to the external hard drive and got lost, or FROZEN, so to speak.  The folks at the computer shop clicked a button so it will not be confused again when we turn off/on the computer from now on.  Whew!  Crisis averted.  

Yesterday was a day for concerts.  As already mentioned, Civic Orchestra had their all-French composer concert last night.  And, in the afternoon, RTO performed at Parkside Manor Nursing Home.  Both went really well.  Poor Steve was the brass section as the trumpet had to work, the trombone was serving in the St. Louis temple, and the tuba was at a funeral.  He held his own very nicely.  It is so great to see him playing the euphonium again. 

 

Steve and I watched “Eight Men Out” Friday night – it is a 1988 film about  the White Sox where eight players threw the World Series (remember Shoeless Joe Jackson?).  Oh, and I finally saw FROZEN with Sarah a week and a half ago.  LOVED IT!  Can’t wait to get it on DVD.  

No school tomorrow - thank you Lincoln and Washington for having birthdays in February!  Freezing rain is possible over night.  Sigh - more FROZEN days, I'm afraid but February is half over and then it will be March and spring is here. 

long ago photo to share

Kirsti asked me to find this photo taken from when Emily graduated from BYU in August, 2001.  Beckie had to work but everyone else is represented.  Check out the Steves!  And, Kirsti was not having a good day, as you can see.  Still pretty cute, though, isn't she in her pouting.

mid-winter news

It is snowing like crazy right now.  Columbia Public Schools did the right thing by cancelling school today even before the first flake fell.  University of Missouri is also closed.  Poor dogs just don't know what to think of having both of us home ALL DAY!
I had a snow day yesterday, too.  Mid-Missouri was still feeling the affects of the freezing rain/drizzle that happened Friday evening.  It was an A-day and I had to stay later than usual for a club meeting so I ventured out not only in the freezing drizzle but in going-home traffic, Those two factors stretched a twenty-minute drive from Rock Bridge high school into an hour-long commute!  I came home to a beautiful bouquet of roses from Steve.  We celebrated 39 years of marriage that night with a home-cooked steak dinner and strawberry pie and by watching "Groundhog Day".  That winter storm cancelled an RTO performance Saturday afternoon and Sarah's moving plans and a date with Sarah to finally see "Frozen".  It also cancelled almost all Sunday church meetings from Columbia northward.  While the main roads were fine, the neighborhood streets and rural roads were still treacherous.  The YSA branch DID meet so Steve and I took the truck and picked up Sarah.  We braved the long, curvy, ice and snow-covered driveway, we avoided hitting her car that was stranded in the yard, and we attended church with the young single adults.    By Sunday evening, most of the residential streets were salted and drivable but the rural roads were still bad enough to call off classes Monday. 
And, we have a snow day tomorrow.  Wow, all this free time!  What an amazing gift. I finished disc 2 of season 3 of Downton Abby yesterday.  The final disc is supposed to arrive tomorrow.  Eeeee, can't wait. Last Wednesday, Steve and I went to see the "Saratov Approach"  - can't believe a Utah movie made it all the way out to Missouri.  We were the only two people in the theater which was too bad. It is a very well made film. 
I have a new calling.  I was released as a counselor in the stake Relief Society presidency and sustained as the stake single adult adviser.  I will work in a committee comprised of Cindy, the stake RS president, Mark Burris, the high counselor over single adults, and Steve, the stake presidency member responsible for that group.  I means I will still travel around the stake - with Steve usually.  I am also a substitute seminary teacher and I taught three days last week. 
Time to close and practice the cello - we have a CCO concert coming up soon and the Berloiz is hard!

Missouri Music Educators conference at Tan-ta-ra

I spent most of my week at the MMEA conference down at the Lake of the Ozarks.  I went Wednesday noon with Margaret Lawless, the orchestra teacher at Hickman and the violist in Prairie Strings and my good friend.  

 

 

I shared the room she had at the resort as well as the ride down there.  We both had to attend because we both had All-State students - both violinists.  Here I am with Arnold Chen, my sophomore violinist.  The orchestra performed Mars, Venus, and Jupiter from "The Planets".  REALLY hard music.  I, in fact, have never performed it.  The kids did a phenomenal job (well, except for the trumpets.  They were quite typically high school sounding).

 

 

This is Arnold's mother and older brother.  The old folks in the back are their adopted grandparents. Both are retired MU professors - he from the law school (yes, he knows Steve) and she from textiles management. 

 This is the view from our room.























Note the rooftops.  That is because we were on the top floor with NO ELEVATOR!  It was 150 steps up to our door.  I told Margaret that when she makes the reservation for next year, she has to tell them that she is OLD and cannot do stairs.  (She is 4 years older than me)

The resort is very lovely but the weather was super cold all week. Thankfully, our room was connected to the main convention area via walkways so we didn't have to go outside at all.  And, thankfully, we did not have snow or ice.

The orchestra people had five hour-long workshops and five 30-minute performances by middle school, high school, and college level orchestras throughout the four days.  That was it.  As I talk to others who attended and to people who attend other types of conferences, the whole experience was a mix of good and bad.  Good to listen to amazing performances and to connect with old friends and network.  Bad because most of the orchestra workshops were either extremely boring or so overwhelming because I am struggling to find time now and how could I ever have time to implement what was being taught. And, I am only a part-time teacher!  I cannot imagine how the full-timers feel.  Sigh.

I did get to enjoy the free chocolate at the vendor exhibits AND, I was able to catch up on this season's Once Upon A Time and I watched on DVD the first three episodes of LAST year's (season 3) Downton Abby during my breaks.  WiFi was available but terrible (imagine the load with a 1000-plus guests all with smart devices).  I had hoped to accomplish so much more on the internet but alas, it was not to be.  

I got home last evening and it was so great to see Steve.  And the dogs went wild, of course. 

I really can't think of any news from Monday or Tuesday.  Steve and I both had Monday off - we talked to our financial advisor (snoozer) and tried to buy a bedside lamp at Lowes but it was faulty so I returned it on Tuesday.  I had cello lessons that day.  And my school time was spent getting things set up for a substitute the rest of the week.  Oh, the external hard-drive is DEAD.  SOOO sad.  And, on that note, I'm out.

Oh technology, how I hate/love you

Our computer came back and it is bug-free.  Our external hard-drive, however, has failed.  Steve and I are not very bright when it comes to technology because we did not back up our external hard-drive.  I guess I stupidly thought that it WAS our back-up.  Floppy discs (remember those) could get wet or bent, thumb drives could get lost or crooked.  But that little 5 X 7 black box - how could that get corrupted???  It is currently sitting in Personalized Computers getting diagnosed but my last phone call with them was not promising.

Well, all my photos can be found in Picassa so I guess I DID do that kind of back up.  But, Steve has over FIVE YEARS of his journal on the external hard drive and nowhere else!  And, now we fear that history may be lost.  It just breaks my heart.  We are going to call the manufacturer.  We are going to plug it in one last time to see if maybe, just maybe we can at least retrieve Steve's one WORD file.  It is prayer time, for sure.

On a brighter note, I DID manage to scan in maybe 100 photos of my oldest sister - from her birth to about 1976 - for her kids to compile a slide show honoring her 80th birthday in February.  And, I also managed to burn these photos onto a CD (well, it actually took 3 CD's because I had to learn how to import the picture files correctly).  Scanning can be a mind-numbing occupation but I have discovered how to minimize the scan window to half my monitor screen so I can watch a movie on the other half.  During this most recent scanning session, I have been catching up on this season's "Once Upon A Time" which is really the only show I watch (except Steven's morning news program on Channel 17).  It is sometimes cheesy, occasionally brings a tear, and it feeds the fantasy geek in me.

Orchestras took up a lot more of my time this week than usual.  I made two trips to the FARC (Fine Arts Resource Center) to look for music to play for District Music Festival in March.  I looked both for the two full orchestras and for small ensembles.  That is a lot of music to find and to heft back to my car!  I had a Friends of the Rock Bridge Orchestra meeting Tuesday night.  Work on the spring-break Chicago trip continues.  I prepared substitute lesson plans for when I am gone this week to the state music conference.  There was an RTO rehearsal yesterday afternoon - we are in the final preparations for a performance at Parkview Manor Nursing Home February 1st.   And, I attended the Rock Bridge Show Choir premier Thursday night.  Whew, THAT is a LOT of time and energy that I am happy to not be involved in.

The highlight of the week has been the two birthdays - Steve on Friday and Quinn on Saturday - and our trip to St. Louis those two days.  Steve had Friday off but I had to teach at Lange so we didn't leave for St. Louis until the afternoon.  After attending the temple, we headed over to Southerlands.  While Emily and Joe went out (a shopping date), grandma and grandpa watched Lilo and Stitch with Lucy and Noah.  Such difficult babysitting....

Then, Saturday morning, Steve and I helped with preparations for a little noon-time party for Quinn.  Photo highlights:




The birthday boys...




Lucy and Quinn waiting for the celebrations to start



This dinosaur balloon was a huge hit with Noah and Lucy




Quinn loved the balloon bouquet




The living room was set up with all sorts of pop-up tents. Noah walked around the house wearing three like a giant caterpillar.






Some of the delicious foods.  I discovered the Buffalo chicken wing dip for the first time.  YUM!





the front-door monster that greeted the guests



monster party favors made by Emily.

 
 Quinn's monster birthday cake.

We returned to Columbia by 2:00 so we could rehearse with RTO at 3:00.  The rest of the day I worked on school stuff and gave Sadie a bath and Steve a haircut. And our week is done.

Strange week

One week ago today, Steve and I were sitting at home with snow falling outside.  Church meetings were cancelled.  School was scheduled to begin the next day but it was cancelled for two days due to the horribly cold weather.  Fortunately, temperatures started to climb Tuesday afternoon and by Friday, we had a THUNDERSTORM.  Trissy went crazy and attacked more wicker and, then went on to vinyl and trashed a storage cube.



Totally destroyed.  I bought a new one yesterday.  I posted this on Facebook and got a really good idea - buy lots of wicker from Goodwill and put it all in a room and, when there is a thunderstorm, just throw Trissy into the "Wicker Room".  Hmmmm....

Today, temperatures are in the fifties!  Only in Missouri.....

Boy, it was SO HARD to get back into the school thing.  Attitudes in my two Lange cellists; missing parts from a music envelope; the thought of all the paperwork I will have to go through to re-order these missing parts; finding "return to sender" marked on an important letter sent in mid-December regarding our Chicago trip; overall worry about the Chicago trip; having the orchestra being overlooked YET AGAIN with RBHS All-State results.  One of my six students made it into the orchestra.  He was the "dark horse" and now I have questioning parents about the validity of the CD's we had to make of their auditions (thanks, again, to the weather).  Needing to coordinate substitutes and lesson plans for when I am down at the music educator's conference because I have a student in the All-State orchestra.  Civic Orchestra started up on Tuesday and the music is really FAST.  And the conductor didn't have us sight read in a slower tempo.  Ugh, I felt like a 2nd year beginner.  Our computer finally came out of the shop Tuesday but when we hooked everything up, our external hard drive - the place where we store EVERYTHING - wouldn't open up.  I bought a new USB cable to hopefully fix the problem.  Nope.  It is now in the computer shop and I HOPE HOPE HOPE that the data on it can be retrieved.  Sigh.  I have been in a funk for three days. 

Only could Friday afternoon and yesterday pull me out of this malaise.  Steve and I watched "Iron Man 3" after having our neighbor, Jan Murphy, over for dinner Friday evening.  And, we drove up to shop at the Amish grocery stores yesterday afternoon and we ran into two faces from our far past:  Nikki and Myra Phillips.  They were shopping in one of the stores and I didn't recognize them.  Nikki recognized me and she and her mom approached us.  Wow, what a pleasant surprise.  (for those who need a refresher:  I watched Nikki and Kelly Phillips before and after school when we lived on Route Z.  Myra is their mom.  Nikki is Beckie's age and they were good friends.  They lived in a trailer park on Mexico Gravel Road)  Myra now lives in Moberly.  She didn't say anything about Kenny, her husband, so I don't know if he is in the picture any longer or not.  Nikki has three children and lives in Sturgeon.  Kelly, her sister, was killed in a car accident 10 years ago. 

One of my new years resolutions is to walk twice a day - Monday through Friday.  I admit I did NOT get all five days in this past week but here is a shot from Wednesday, I think.  The dogs LOVE this daily adventure.  Sadie even walks the whole way - no doggie back pack for her.

Trip to Indiana

We spent the New Year with Julina in Indiana.  We left REALLY early Tuesday morning from Emily and Joe's  (think 4:20) to drop Elise off at the airport in time for her 6:00 am flight and we just kept on driving to Greenwood and arrived before lunch.  In time for Imogene to take Julina, Steve, and me to Ruby Tuesdays for lunch. (Alex had to work Tuesday and Wednesday).  Our entire visit was just so relaxing and peaceful.  I brought my jewelry-making box (part of Shiloh's gift from us was to help her make her own necklace) and I was able to putter with some of my own jewelry, make some baby hats, grade some RBHS orchestra tests, and just visit, visit, visit.

We greeted the New Year sunrise Wednesday morning out at the small Greenwood airport where Alex keeps the plane he is working on.  We got snow on Thursday - about 5-6 inches.

Here is Julina working at her desk in the room where all the computers and Imogene's card-making projects are kept.

Juli and Alex bought a used piano from his cousin and I was able to put new strings on Julina's cello.  My old music teacher heart is gladdened to see music back in Julina's life.   I just wish there was an RTO nearby for her to play in.

Shiloh and Stratton joined us Thursday night.  They opened Christmas gifts.  We made the necklace.  And, then it was time to leave the next morning for home.  Although there was snow on the ground, the interstate was clear.  However, we passed by over half a dozen jack-knifed semi trailers in Illinois - debris from the day before - so I am glad we didn't have to travel then.  We got to Emily's for lunch and a little nap and then we went to the temple.  We ate dinner at an Applebees in Wentzville (got to catch some of the Orange Bowl and MU vs. OSU) and we were home in Columbia by 9:15 Friday night.

Our Saturday was spent putting Christmas away.  Temperatures got into the mid-40's so we even got the outside decorations down.  Sarah came over to do some laundry and that is why Bones is in the above picture - begging for doggie treats.

Snow started falling last night and it was coming down steadily this morning and forecasts were so bleak for today and tomorrow that church was cancelled and school is already called off for tomorrow.  It is REALLY COLD out there.  I am so thankful we have 4-wheel drive because we were able to fetch the elders and Lizzy and Melanie and we had a lovely pulled-pork dinner tonight.