Perspective

There has been a lot of stuff going on in my life lately.

I've talked about some of it here. The new job, trying to buy a house, life in general.

Some of it, I haven't. Suffice it to say that there's a lot of stuff going on in the background that I won't go into here for many reasons.

I have my moments when I sit and think about everything that is happening, and I wonder if I will ever get any of it accomplished. I am living in such a state of limbo right now, waiting for the right pieces to fall into place in so many aspects of my life, and it seems like it's never ever going to happen. Seriously - there is so much crap that is out of my control right now, and I have to wait for things to happen. I have done everything that I can humanly do, and now it's a waiting game.

And of course there have been those instances when I think that everything has fallen into place, and then something else falls out and crashes - and I have to start all over again. It's life. It happens. Pick up the pieces and get going with the reassembly process.

The boys and I went out walking around the neighborhood today, scoping out the damage from last night's storm. We walked to a nearby creek that has been dry for what seems like years, and found that it was full and overflowing, finally.

And then I had a "do as I say and not as I do" moment and I walked up to the top of the railroad bridge. No, I didn't walk across it, even though it was tempting. Instead, I just sat on the rail for a moment and snapped a few pictures looking down the tracks.

Kind of a neat view, isn't it?

It reminded me of a lesson that one of my teachers taught in high school. It was actually in geometry class, and it was about parallel lines: lines that will go on and on forever without ever intersecting. I remember the teacher talking about various examples of parallel lines, and then he went off on a tangent (get it?) about optical illusions, and the specific example that he used was railroad tracks. We know that they're parallel - we know that they never cross, but yet if you look far enough down the track it looks like they do come together.

It seems like things are so far from falling into place for us right now - but I know that if I look far enough down the line, it will all come together. And it won't be an illusion - it will happen. I just have to be patient.

The first snow

So we got about an inch of snow overnight, coupled with a lot of wind. The drive to get the older 3 kids to school this morning was a bit of a challenge, but it wasn't horrible. What could normally be done in maybe 40 minutes took closer to an hour, but I took my time and didn't rush it.

Drifts created by 1" of snow and a lot of wind.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, er, house....

My pathetic flowerbed. Maybe I can call it modern art
or something.

Dead mums.

He wanted to go outside to play in the worst way.

SNOWBALL FIGHT!!!!

Then we took off to deliver the popcorn that Alex sold for Scouts....

Within the city limits, by the way....

....and her friend.

It wouldn't be a normal day without getting stuck by one of these.

Heading back from a friend's house "out in the country".

So that was our first snowpocalypse of the season. I'm sure that there will be many more with the way that the local media hypes up every single snowflake that may or may not fall. This one was actually a little worse than I expected, but it still wasn't much as far as I was concerned. It's going to be back up closer to 50 degrees tomorrow, so it's all going to be gone anyway....but I did hear a rumor that we might get some more snow on Christmas Day.  I'll believe it when I see it though.

Holy wow what a day!

When I woke up this morning, these were my plans for the day:

1. Take Alex to school.
2. Get gas.
3. Take Daniel to school and have his parent/teacher conference.
4. Go to Wichita to get Daniel's new Social Security card.
5. Pick Alex up from school.
6. Pick Daniel up from school.
7. Go home and be a vegetable.

Easy day, right?

*insert maniacal laughing here*

It started off according to plan. I took Alex to school and then got gas in the van. Then Daniel and I came home and got ready for the day.

First 2 plans done.

Then on the way to school, as I pulled out of the side street by my house, we got sidetracked.

OK, so he's not my favorite driver (duh), but it's NASCAR dammit, and it was around the corner from my house. Literally. We had to stop. Really.

Then off to Daniel's conference, which went well. He's on the verge of reading sight words, and his general smarts have his teacher completely and totally floored. He's way ahead of where he "should" be - surprise, surprise, surprise. I am so stinkin' proud of my kids.

Then a marathon run to Wichita to sit and wait at the Social Security office for what seemed like forever, but I got everything taken care of and should get his new card in the mail in the next couple of weeks.

OK, so cross the conference and the Social Security thing off of the list.

I picked Alex up from school, and then thought that I could buzz into the bank to get Daniel's name changed on his bank account. Turned out that it would take too long to do that right then, so we left to go get Daniel....and we had to run back so that Alex could see the car too.

....and then made a spur-of-the-moment run to Sonic for beverages and then to the dealership to order the part for the van door.

On my way back through town, I noticed a whole bunch of radio station and news vans parked around the train station. Having no clue what was going on, I posted something on facebook and found out that Martina McBride was going to be in town for something-or-other.

Oooooooohhhh really?

Then back to the bank. Name change completed.

Wait, how many things just got added to the list of not-much-to-do-today?

Then to the house. Boys into the stroller for an almost-sprint for the almost-mile to the train station to see Martina.

Hey, that wasn't on the list either.

Local radio personalities

Some of our finest

Here she comes!

Um, yeah.

Man, I wish I was taller....

Some *ahem* nice lady gave the boys train whistles. Gee, thanks lady.

So after Martina spoke for about 2 minutes (literally) and then disappeared, we walked back home.

So we got home. Ate supper....well, the boys had banana bread and then crashed. Hard. I realized that I had kinda' sorta' forgotten to eat anything all day, so I made some supper for me, then did some sewing while I watched Biggest Loser and Parenthood and cleaned the house at the same time.

Scary thing is that I feel like I forgot to do something today. Besides eat, I mean.

I hate that.

But it was a good day.