Category: pictures

Yes…a garden.

Slow down just a bit now (Heidicoaster) it isn’t completely done but it is close. The only good place we had to put a garden was very rocky on top with clay beneath so we went ‘elevated’. I looked over the options at the local hardware store and was floored by the cost of 1x12x8foot boards.* So I trekked over to Second Use thinking I may find something there and did I ever. They had tons of solid doors that were A) the right size and B) the right cost…$5 each. Which, by the way, was dang near the cost of one lineal foot of 1x12x8ft hemlock.

So making a long story short, we have two big vegetable garden planters in our side yard with VERY decorative boxes. Now they just need some dirt, seeds, water, and sun.

The latter would be most appreciated by me.

* Wood these days is lower quality and more expensive. <sigh>

Well, this one almost speaks for itself…but I find a little back-story is (always) necessary.

Barbies are ubiquitous at our house.

The Mermaids are always asking for one or the other and in all honesty, I can’t tell most of them apart. Especially in the dark…and The Mermaids can.

Tonight was bath night and one or more Barbies usually join The Mermaids for a bath. After a while Barbies hair starts to get, shall we say, ripe. So tonight was wash-Barbies-hair night.
When I saw them all together I thought it the opportune time to document the names (aka test the veracity of there actually being 19 names for 19 Barbies). I was also flabberstounded that there were actually 19 of them.

If I felt so inclined I could reference this document when Ariel, Jessica, BeachBarbie, Ariel, Erica, or Jessica is requested in the future. (You’ll see what I mean.)

Probably won’t…but I could…if I wanted to.

So, share a minute with me to study The Annotated Barbie (180KB).

* Please note, this is a family friendly blog and Barbies in our house regularly dress like this, not just on wash-Barbies-hair night. Maybe it is because they always want to be ready for a bath? Who knows. I guess I could ask The Mermaids, I suppose they know.

We have spent the past two days recovering from our holiday extravaganza on top of about 9 days of snow. I think the party is finally over.

Tomorrow I go back to work for the first time in over a week and since my spot is occupado with two worn out mermaids, two incessantly grinning barbies, one case of swimmers ear and a 103 degree fever my couch is beckoning softly.

We’ll see how well my body and mind react to a 6AM wake up call and a minimum six mile bike ride.

Merry Christmas!

With appropriate snow, and as tradition would have it, we have this years submission into the snow sculpture hall of fame.

Over breakfast we talked and decided a snow bunny would be a fun entrant since we now have AGirlBunny and Nishi living in our house with us. The snow was perfect for shaping and OH so plentiful.

So we did and here is BigGirlBunny, guarding our house…and look out she “has big fangs!”

The overall shape was easy. I missed just a bit on the ratio of head size but overall, it works.

For scale, you can see Emma riding her, she bugged me for about an hour “Is she done now Daddy?”

I am especially proud of the ears. I was simply shaping them when I found I was fully though and so it came to pass that there were two ears, even better.

Just when you thought it was safe to “go back in the water” it snows some more.
The pictures I keep taking are of the highest accumulations and the biggest winter storm I can recall.
And it just keeps getting bigger, especially for the SoWA Zimmermans!

I woke up at a strange time this morning, 03:15, out of Emma’s bed where I must have fallen asleep singing “Twinkle Tar” and “I have a dear wittow dowie and her eyes are bwight byoo”. I checked the snow and it just keeps accumulating. There is some kid in me yet, ’cause now I am definitely awake.

In the past 6 hours it has dropped at least another 3 – 4 inches. So, more proof and fun pictures are forthcoming.

I had to take these as hand held (braced) time exposures so there is some noise but not bad overall.

I HAD to edit out the Roto Rooter logo on the truck across the way…too pretty to leave it in.

This is the one view I keep taking, out my office window.

You can see that our snow is over the top of the wheels just like in Amboy. We are going to have to ride our bikes if we expect to go anywhere. 😉

Yay, and lest you think us derelict in our snow playing duties notice the slight imperfections in that snow. There were HUGE footprints and body impressions there only yesterday.

Also, some ice(ing) and frost(ing) of a different sort was had yesterday.

Over on The Observer’s page we see proclamations of Record Snow Depth, and deservedly so.

But I have a little problem with my comparison;
* firstly our local snowfall does not compare in volume, no question
* secondly our local wind patterns brought 40+ MPH gusts into town and the 20°F temps kept the snow from being friendly (with itself).
So, I have, for comparison, record snow drifts. For the approximately 2 inches of snow that fell I have what might be 2 foot drifts around the house.

This gives a taste of the volume of flakes, or rather pellets, that were wind-driven last night.

Notice the missing curb/sidewalk/gutter that is usually present, this is now a very smooth parabolic cul de sac.

Notice the rear of the car compared to the front.

And they are so aesthetically and naturally pleasing that for arts sake, I feel I have a moral obligation not to obstruct their lines with a callous and unfeeling measuring device, for it would serve no purpose other than to disturb.

They keep saying that the freezing rain is on it’s way.
THAT may keep us from going to the Annual Winter Showcase Dance Festival Performance Thingie for the girls. In some ways…I really hope not. They have really worked hard to get their dances down, every Friday night for three months. It would be a shame to miss the event.
I think that is the only thing that has discolored my usual enthusiasm for weather such as this.
Later today I would like to see what a little sledding will do for my outlook.

Over on Heidicoaster I lamented our lack of snow. Today I got what I wished for, in spades.

I even had the gall to go into work after working from home on the previous day off. This morning it was “warm” and wet in my hometown at 6AM so I toodled on my diamond frame to the train. No recumbent this morning…just in case.

When I stepped off the train in Seattle there was two inches on the ground. Yay! I’d found it and I caressed the snow with my knobby tires over a mile into the office. In some places I was the first bike through after the snow.

And it didn’t stop, all day. I got worried word that home was now being deluged with snow and hail. Then my late meeting was canceled and after a rather un-productive day watching cars drive successfully down Battery Street I figured to catch the first train out of town.

Me and thousands of my favorite Seattlites. The train was like a refugee ride out of Mumbai.

It wasn’t quite like this…

…nobody was wearing those headwraps.

Anyway, I wasn’t cramming my bike on there. So I checked the next train didn’t come for 40 minutes. The same with the good bus. The bad bus…if it came at all, was sure to be packed to the gills and unreliable on the worsening roadways.

Ferget it! I’ll just ride.

So I started off with a warning to my fretful mermaids.

I can always call BopOp and have him drive out to meet me if I get stuck.

Those fateful words were still hanging in the air as I started out, caught an edge of some slush, a gust of wind, a row of some nasty chain driven bus grooves and a close driver. Besides, the call would probably precede a 10-15 minute wait in the snow and wind somewhere.
Probably
best
if I just
turn around right now and wait for ol’ reliable; a.k.a. the next train.
Good idea.

I hopped aboard a sparsely populated train and peeled off my layers. Dutifully, at 4:20 we shoved off. Yay, I would be home by 5PM to play in the snow with The Mermaids!

And then
we
stopped.

Let’s just say I fell asleep and woke up 35 minutes later and we hadn’t moved. Ack! It was getting colder out there and now I REALLY could have been home under pedal power before this thing. The Snowmanity! Trapped inside all day watching it fall and now, when my goal is in reach, trapped! Like rats.

But I was warm and chatted with a neighbor about the weather, so I had that goin’ for me.

Finally we rescued the poor stranded train-goers at the first stop who had probably been shoved aside as the early train out of Mumbai pulled up, and then they waited a full 40 minutes longer than normal in the sub freezing, driving snow. I avoided their onrush, got out, rode away, and noticed the next train already pulling into the station as the previous one left. The irony.

Now I was freezing, the wind was amazing, the ice ruts were manageable but constant. And 5 minutes later I was sweating, breathing hard through my iced nose, riding the barren arctic landscape like a lone fox in search of the last lemming. I rode where I pleased…except on the freakishly iced over roads.

Home, sit down, have some warm coffee made fresh by a loving Mermaid and two sips later; YANK!

C’mon Dayeee?! Let’s go outside and play in the snow! I want to play with you!

Down the coffee and away we go. Wax the sled runners a little for show and hit the streets!
Snow Angels, 3 degree pitches and blistering 4 mph runs down a sometimes gritty underlayment.

Nevertheless, the Mermaids stayed warm, stayed dry, and stayed happy; even when we came inside for cocoa.

Tomorrow, I work from home.

Apparently we can’t get enough of the whole costume thing around here. For Abby’s birthday UN-birthday party she had planned an Alice in Wonderland theme.
She planned it, The Mommy executed. The Daddy and Emma just showed up.
And by executed I mean

OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!

There is so much material in Alice in Wonderland that we could have simply conversed entirely in Alice quotes all day long and never repeated ourselves. In fact I did; well…at least the former. My tongue nearly stuck in a perma-lithp.

Here is an excellent group shot we got just before the festivities began and afterwards I include some detail shots because we were just all in character.

It was a very, merry, unbirthday for all.