Growing Paines { 5 }: The Blur of Winter

Where are the Paines, you must be wondering? What have they been up to this month?

I wonder that myself. These past 5 weeks have been a blur of storms, snow days and school delays. Shoveling, plowing, scraping, slipping on ice, bundling up, striping back down, piling boots by the door, sweeping up salt, and wetting socks from snow puddles on the floor. We barely seem to recover from one storm before the next one swoops in. I guess this is a ‘real’ winter, which is why I prepare California weather.

Anyway, there have been other adventures going on, but the weather has been central through all of them. Silas has had 5 snow days, 4 two-hour delays, and one early dismissal so far. And we still have plenty of winter left! One of Silas’ therapists said that it’s been like a long string of Mondays... Every time there’s a day off, the next day back is like Monday again. You have to adjust to the schedule and routine all over again. It’s been a long series of stops and starts.

This past week was a dosey––Nate was away in Seattle for a Microsoft conference, so while he hobnobbed with other geeks and discussed the latest DAX software with some of the best programmers in the world, we were at home getting blasted by two big winter storms. I’ve said this before, but I'm so thankful that our families are close by. They were a huge help to me, as well as our neighbors down the street...with shoveling, helping with the kids, and providing moral support. I was exhausted from all the effort, but looking back I can see how God provided for us even in the midst of difficulty. The power stayed on, and I ended up having help each day, despite the snow and ice. Plus the days Nate flew were both clear.

I’m going to be putting up a batch of posts over the next few days to make up for the lack this past month, and making it look like they were all posted at different times. That may be cheating, by hey, this is my blog and I can do whatever I want, right? So check back soon to hear more from life on the frozen tundra of the Paine homestead.