Of Odds and Ends, and Blasts from the Past

What an interesting few weeks. Two weeks ago, like most of the Midwest we dug our way out snow, ice, and even more snow. For reasons that escape me, I've never been quite able to master the art of ice removal. Snow I can move just fine, but ice--that's a different story. Nonetheless I did my level best to keep our driveway and walks level. As you can imagine not much happened that week. Abby was pretty much out of school the entire week and Sam didn't have preschool that week either. Even OSU closed for a day. So for the most part, much to their consternation, they were pretty much housebound though we did make it outside for some rousing snowball fights, fort-making, and other snowy frivolities.

Contrast that with now when the temperatures are expected to be in the lower 60's, most of the snow is gone, and there is a real chance of thunderstorms tonight. Weird stuff.

Anyway, Sam and Abby are still having fun. For the past few Saturdays Abby and I have been going to a soccer clinic close to our house. A select soccer program has partnered with the league Abby plays in to offer clinics at a warehouse facility. Basically, they've placed AstroTurf on the floor of the warehouse so that they can have soccer practices in bad weather. From what I gather a parent of one of the players on the select team owns the warehouse and donated it for this purpose--must be nice to be able to donate something like that but I digress. The clinics focus mainly on ball skills like dribbling, passing, trapping and stuff like that which is good for Abby, since aside from some work we do in the backyard, she hasn't really had much instruction on those sorts of things.

Both kids are still taking ice-skating lessons and remarkably Sam really seems to like it. He can pretty much skate around without falling though he does like to "fall" intentionally on occasion. Sometimes he falls just so he can get back up by himself and other times he falls so he can make "angels" on the ice--he'll lay flat on the ice and start moving his arms and legs like he's making a snow angel. His teachers really seem to be impressed with the progress he's made, though I do sort of feel bad for the one woman he sort of latches onto for his lesson. Luckily she's good natured about it.

Cindy and I have both had recent blasts from our respective pasts. In the middle of December I opened a Facebook account to see what all the fuss was about, but sort of forgot about it until I got a "friend" request during the bowl game (arrrrrrggggggg) complaining about "Tresselball" which is in overstated concept in my opinion. Since then I've reconnected with a ton of people from my past, a couple of whom I hadn't seen in well over 20 years. That's been cool.

Cindy, who is a self-described Luddite and had little idea that Facebook existed, was hit with something like 5 or 6 friend requests in one day last month. So she, somewhat reluctantly, opened an account and since then has enjoyed reconnecting with a good number of her friends.