I'm posting today with a heavy heart. I spent the weekend in Temple visiting family and friends, and until Sunday morning, it was a normal visit home. Good food, drinking in the driveway with my siblings, and hanging out with a best friend that I never get to see.

Sunday morning, I woke up and went downstairs to find that my mom had left the house early to go to our friend Deedee's house. Deedee is this AMAZING woman who has 7 (yes, 7) children. Two teenage boys (one is hers, the other is her husband's), an 11 yo (hers), two more who are around 7-8 (adopted foster kids), one who is about 6 (another adoptee), and an infant who is biologically hers and her husband's. All these kids are home schooled. And the four middle kids are/have been special needs kids. Three of those she adopted. ONE of those (the six year old) she "found" in a hospital like a stray cat. Her parents had basically abandoned her because of her health issues, and Deedee took her in. Without question. And the six year old was the reason my mom went over there before we got up. She got a call from Deedee's husband, Joe, that Bethany had passed away that morning.

Bethany was a beautiful child, with (according to my mom) at least FIVE "cephalies." For those of you who are not into medical terminology, cephaly means that it relates to the brain. One is bad. FIVE means that you "should" probably be dead. This little girl should not have responded to anything. She should have been a vegetable. Now, she didn't speak, but she laughed if you tickled her. She recognized her nurse's voice, and she had a preference for men over women. She also had seizures, big ones, that lasted for minutes at a time. Her obstacles were not ones that most biological parents want to deal with, and yet this woman (she wasn't married to Joe yet when the adoption took place) took her on.

I am regularly amazed by this family, who is so mixed. (In addition to having special needs, two of the adopted children are black in a white family.) They also donated all of Bethany's usable organs, in addition to her hair. And so I ask you, my 9 blog followers, please pray for this family in their time of loss. To add insult to injury, today is Deedee's birthday, and the 27th would be Bethany's. They will bury her on the 26th. SO keep them in your thoughts and in your prayers. Please.

Snow. Again. It's never ending.

It's snowing again. The weatherman is predicting 3-5 inches. On top of 14 we got earlier this week. Oh yeah, and more on Sunday. Only a few inches again. "Only." And again on Wednesday. For Wednesday, they're predicting 10 inches. Great.

I have not left my apartment complex since I got home from work on Monday night. I have left my apartment, but only to walk the dog. We have not gotten mail since Monday, nor does there seem to be much chance of it coming before next weekend.

Hailey's third birthday is next Saturday, and while we don't have a big party planned, I did plan on having our families and a few friends in for a little party at Fuddrucker's. Gonna be tough to do if they have to drive through SNOW. COPIOUS AMOUNTS OF SNOW. I know, I know, New England has been going through this all winter. Small comfort, since we're in Tulsa, and can't be let out of our houses in this stuff, because we can't be trusted to drive in it.

A friend of mine called it "snow hell" on Facebook. And I think it is. Cabin fever has set in, our routines have been disrupted for an entire week, and we have had to eat more leftovers than we care to think of. I am winter's biggest advocate, at least among my friends. I love the cold, love the white stuff, and yet, I am READY. FOR. WINTER. TO. END.

Snow. Everywhere

Most of you have heard by now of the great blizzard of 2011. This is the third blizzard I've ever experienced, and it has been by far the most inconvenient. For me, anyway.

The first one happened on our way to Aspen when I was four and a half. Not really a big deal for me, I wasn't driving, and I didn't have to work. It merely meant an extra night in a truck stop with my parents, siblings, and grandparents. My mom probably didn't like it, since my sister was less than ten days old, but she didn't air her concerns to me.

The second one was Christmas of 2009. Not really a "blizzard," there wasn't really enough snow, but it was blizzard-like conditions (which just means the wind blows the snow a lot and makes visibility practically nothing). I wasn't working at the time, although Chad was, but since it was Christmas Eve, he got off work early so we could drive to Temple to see my family. How far did we make it, you ask? Oh, about 45 minutes down the road to this little town called Okmulgee. Only it took us like two hours to get there. After we watched another car on the northbound side of the highway spin into the median (they were fine), we turned around. It was actually the best Christmas I've ever had, since it was just my little family. By some lucky chance, I bought a saucer sled for Chad for Christmas, so we played on that, made stuffed rock cornish game hens, and just hung out.

This year, I have a job. Not one that I'm particularly crazy about, but it is a job. I can't get to it. My car does not have 4 wheel drive, and since we live in an apartment, we're pretty well blocked in. We got fourteen inches, and yesterday it was so miserable outside that we only ventured out three times between the three of us. Once for Chad, and twice for me, just so we could walk the dog. Today has been better, we did get out, but it's cold, and Hailey can't really walk on the icy parts of the road well, so she falls a lot, and so she hates it. Which means we're home bound. Again. And probably will be again tomorrow. Chad is going to get to work, but Hailey's day care is closed, and I'm not interested in wrecking my car to get to work.

Anyway, we moved to Tulsa for this kind of weather. Sort of. We thought we'd get a little snow here and there. The other day, my best friend (who lives in Philly at the moment) asked me how much snow Tulsa got annually. Nine inches was the average that I saw a few days before this conversation. She then asked if living here might require a snow blower. I told her that if she thought she wanted to own a snow blower, perhaps Tulsa was not the place for her. Sure do wish I had a snow blower right now...

But hey! At least I'm not in Texas, where they're iced in and experiencing rolling blackouts...