snowgate

I haven't taken any pictures of this epic week of snow. I think it's my way of trying to make it all go away but fat flakes continue to fall. Yesterday it snowed in every state but Hawaii, if that isn't a sign that the end of days are near what is. I guess another sign might be replaying the tragic video footage of the Georgian luger, Nodar Kumaritashvili, again and again and again on the news. I find the constant replay of footage like this and other visually disturbing images so horrific. It seems to remove the humanity from the victim. That is someone's child, brother, boyfriend, friend. Who'd want to see a loved ones death replayed ad nauseam in some sensational attempt to what, inure the public by the constant repetition of tragedy?

But I digress from my whole point of this post, to whine about the weather and having children home from school all week and to complain about facebook comments. There should be some sort of unspoken etiquette that if you don't really talk to a 'friend' all that often, or even email them for that matter, you should probably refrain from leaving sanctimonious comments to someone's post. I don't even go on facebook that much anymore, aside from noting the statuses of the other parents of my kids school or to see if anyone is planning sledding or something like that. So... I put a comment down about being so sad to see snow continuing to fall because Pittsburgh's handling of all this snow has been horrible at best, thus the snowgate title which I'd like to trademark. Our young mayor totally dropped the ball, it took forever to get the city streets to a point where they were drivable while people in the suburbs were able to get around without a problem. I understand that it's difficult; city streets can be narrow and people park their cars on the street instead of in a driveway or garage but the mayor really bungled the whole handling of this snowmaggedon event. But I'm getting off track again... so I put the comment about being upset with the snow continuing to fall because some days it was too cold to take the kids outside and damn I just find it hard to think of entertaining things to do when cooped up in a house so long. But a 'friend' whom I haven't talked to in years and haven't even emailed for months writes 'it's snow, it will melt. take the kids sledding.' How is that helpful? And because this friend is a man, this will seem terribly sexist, but it annoys me even more. He is not a stay at home Dad so I don't think he gets it. And then that gets me thinking how it drives me crazy when you come across parents who are so outwardly demonstrative about how much they love parenting and spending time with their children but, ironically, these are usually the types that spend very little time with their children. I don't know, maybe it's the schism between working parents and those who stay at home. Maybe the comments are perpetuated by guilt that they don't get to spend enough time with their children. Or maybe the truly feel that way since the time with their children is so short they focus on making the best of it. Maybe I'm just a reactionary to this 'every moment is a joy' sunshine and rainbows type of parenting. I mean you can be happy about parenting, don't get me wrong, but when all you do is say positive things and never complain or admit that it can also be really hard I just wind up thinking you're either full of shit or a Stepford parent. Gosh, it would probably be easier to just admit that I can be an outright judgmental shrew at times, no?

So I'll leave you with pictures of Oona's room, three pillows, bedspread and curtain down. Just two more square pillows to finish and I might get another long rectangular one too.
the room has a red glow when you draw the curtain, perhaps not the best thing for a high spirited girl but the curtain is usually only drawn at night.

she has a verrrry small room. she's got the bare minimum in this room. the curtain fabric is hard to see. it's two prints, for the front and back, of tiny flowers that matches the bolder prints on the pillows, very cute and spirited, like Oona.

I got her the indian style banner(?) to hang above her bed back in the fall, gave it to her for christmas and finally got around to hanging it up today. progress!

Lucky me! Water seeping in and yet more cracks in oona's ceiling thanks to all the snow. So it looks like I'll be dipping into my home line of credit yet again to fix this come spring.

Close up of the bedspread, with flannel on one side and the pink dotted velour scrumptiousness on the other it's a tactile wonder of a bedspread.