Well a crisp, sunny–bitterly cold and very windy–day is dawning here in Maryland. We’ve gone from this:
to this:
Time to start digging out once more, although truthfully it doesn’t look as bad as Friday/Saturday’s snow. Yesterday we broke the Washington, DC area’s 100+ year record for seasonal snowfall; we now stand at 54.9 inches. And counting–more snow is due on Monday.
All in all, we’ve come through quite comfortably. Never lost power. Have had lots (too much) yummy food. [Note: there is nothing more satisfying to this Swiss-at-heart girl than eating cheese fondue while looking out the window at a howling blizzard.] We watched Gosford Park and The Breakfast Club courtesy of Netflix Instant Watch. The latter, made in 1985, stands up amazingly well with time. It’s a teen must-see. We played Apples to Apples and Scattergories. We did not play Scrabble. M. refused because it incorporates two of her freely acknowledged least favorite skills: spelling and rapid mental math. C., of course, loves Scrabble. For the moment she will have to satisfy herself with a Scrabble game she is playing via snailmail (how old skool is that?) with her friend in Boston.
There has been much coverage in the Post (Online. I confess we are those weasels who stopped our paper subscription in December) about the impact the loss of a week of school will have. I’ve urged C. to check EdLine to see if her teachers were posting any assignments, but so far nothing. So instead she has knit a hat, has been watching who knows what on her computer and been reading American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard Daley, among other things. She has also been recovering for a wickedly painful muscle spasm in her neck that left her immobile most of Monday. (Too much leaning over her laptop screen?)
M., for her part, has been working on her National History Day paper. Have to confess I’m a bit worried about it. I don’t feel like she has clear idea of what she should be doing and of course, her copy of Writers Inc. and the Michael Clay Thompson book on writing a scholarly paper are at school. Not looking forward to working with her on this today. I’m forecasting tears and frustration.
Frankly, I’d prefer snow.
We’ve
a) had a discussion of regions of the spine.
b) discussed Greek gods and goddesses.
c) put Greek classical civilization into the context of European language development. I.e. none of the Romance languages existed yet and there was no English.
d) made a map of an imaginary Greek city.
e) played Spanish children’s music.
f) read several one-paragraph biographies of famous Black men and women and answered questions about them (school sent homework on Friday).
g) Drew points on graph paper following the coordinate geometry conventions. (teacher sent home, marked optional)
h) Drew curved lines on graph paper following the coordinate geometry conventions. (the math teacher over-shot on this one, it required substantial parental help and the picture didn’t appear before the child got frustrated.)
plus tunneling in the snow, drinking hot chocolate, sledding, playing games on Facebook, and emptying the silverware after the dishes are done. Not a bad week for a young one.
Sounds like a fabulous week! Let me guess…the discussion on the regions of the spine followed parents shoveling snow.
Got it in one!
Oooooh, fondue. That would have been nice!
Just to make y’all jealous, we have daffodils and some sort of fruit tree blooming in our yard :-p
On the other hand, for what we paid last month for this normal sized house (even though it was 30% below its 2007 peak value), we could buy a 5700 sq ft 6 BR McMansion in Bethesda.
We’ve had such an amazing eleven days, I don’t want it to end. In short, my 17 year old and I out-ran the storm. I took her to New York just as the snow began tapping on our door a week and a half ago. The farther north I got, the less snow I saw. While you were all sipping hot chocolate and gazing out at your never ending winter wonderland, New York’s puny dusting all but disappeared by mid afternoon.
My daughter immersed herself in family for ten days. She’d been away from them, college application season and no time. This blizzard was a GODSEND. I was very concerned my child had no time to recharge her batteries since all of winter break was eaten up with college apps. This impromptu break gave her much needed rest and sleep. And family. I wish we’d gone skiing but when your mother is 95, you don’t put off a visit any longer.
We got our own version of a blizzard on Wednesday. But nothing like here. OMG, you guys sure got a lot of snow. I can’t believe the mountains I’m seeing everywhere. Wow! Virginia is freaking out!