Month: February 2010 (Page 5 of 6)

Woo hoo! I’m forty today! It seems weird to say it.

I’m genuinely excited to see what my forties will be like. I have thoroughly enjoyed my thirties, but I’ve been thirty-something for ten years now. It’s time for a change. I’m now forty-something!

A good friend of mine described their forties this way: “I would categorize my 40’s as freeing. I stopped letting dumb things get stuck in my craw, I learned to say ‘No’ and not feel bad about it, and I really learned to let go of unwarranted guilt. By dumping these hampering things, you really learn to focus on what’s really important and not just in a personal way…but in a God way.”

I can hardly wait!

Yesterday was a snow day. Not just a day off from school (it would have been anyway since it was Saturday), but a day off from everything. I was SNOWED IN. Snowfall totals ranged from 24 to 30 inches. The largest dump of snow was in the early morning hours, but there was a steady, light snowing that continued until the afternoon. Here are some pictures of the Blizzard of ’10. How would you say that? “The Blizzard of Ten”? “The Blizzard of Oh-Ten”?

My snow-covered porch:

My snow-covered pond:

The sidewalk:
After my morning shoveling, it snowed some more.

My house:

I waded through the snow twice to fill the bird feeder:

Last time I saw a skier; this time a snowmobile!

Harford Road was full of people walking. It looked post-apocalyptic.

Evergreen wasn’t plowed at all. Some nice person stomped a foot path though:

Today is Friday. That means it’s Recycling Pick Up Day. When they first switched over to a once-a-week pick up of all recyclables, I was putting out a full bin every time. Sometimes it was overflowing. But lately, it takes two weeks or even longer for my recycle bin to get filled. I think today I won’t even put it out.

So what’s going on? I don’t think I’m making any more regular trash. Most of my recyclable materials come from food packaging. Am I eating less at home? I certainly haven’t been buying any non-food items. I can’t remember the last time I went to a mall.

Ever since Brent said something, I’ve been questioning whether it makes sense to put recycling out at all. It’s more expensive to recycle than to make new items. Is that ultimately a good use of economic resources? The government is spending all this money to recycle things, and it could be using it to help people? Or, it could just not take that money to begin with?

BREAKING NEWS: School is closed today! Woo hoo! I’m glad I looked at our school’s website. We usually follow Baltimore County schools, but not today. I hope everybody else sees it. I’m going back to bed.

Tuesday night into yesterday morning we had snow. It ended up being four to six inches in the Baltimore area. Any normal year we would have had a snow day. But this year we’ve had so many heavy snows, the people who cancel school didn’t even blink. We had a late start yesterday, which was nice, but a snow day would have been so much nicer. Just a little un-planned break…

There’s a Nor’easter coming. The current predictions are for 12 inches or more. On Saturday. Dang.