Here's What I Know

• Our temps have dipped below zero.  They're back up now.  Still freezing.  And I think I feel especially cold because we've been listening to The Long Winter, a Little House on the Prairie book, and they are having a terrible time.  Holy canoli.  They are freezing.  Every day.  And only eating bread and potatoes each day, but now they're out of wheat and they ate the last potato.  Meanwhile Almanzo and his brother are feasting on stacks of pancakes and syrup and some kind of pork meat item.  We are listening to this story in the car and we haven't gone anywhere for a few days and I'm aching to know if Almanzo made it back from his 40 mile trek to find wheat to save the town!
• Paul just found a Culver's gift card from this summer with a $11.63 balance.  If you're cold, you might as well eat ice cream.
• I emailed our local live theater and asked if they would like to have my wedding dress and veil.  And they said yes.  With exclamation points.  I changed my mind.  I'm going to keep it.
• As I was going through my sewing things tonight I got emotional and sentimental about a seam ripper.  It was my very first seam ripper and it was given to me by my Great Aunt Phyllis.  I didn't even know what a seam ripper was before she took me under her quilted wing.  It is an essential sewing tool.  Here's an example:

 It's like 3 inches long.  We're not storing much when we move, and we're bringing just a few suitcases with us when we go.  And yet I feel as if I should save the seam ripper.  Never mind the footstool Paul made me when we were long-distance dating, made from walnut harvested from his father's farm.  Stow the seam ripper.  That's when I knew it was time for a break from cleaning out the upstair's room.

• I'm going back to California.  Next week.  With three children and no husband.  Know why?  It's the 100th Day Extravaganza of the Successful Stem Cell Transplant.  It's the anti-funeral.  My Dad has recovered from the ordeal, has not a bit of leukemia in him, and we're going to celebrate.  All of us.  Except for Paul.  But everyone else.  My Brother.  And my other Brother.  And my Sister.  And their families.  And galleons of aunts, uncles, cousins, and relations.  (Not that they're pirates, but galleons just seemed the word to use.)  It's going to be fabulous.
• When I told Peter about this trip and I started listing all the family we'd be seeing, he got a super cute grin when I came to Cadence.  He said, "I've been waiting so long to see her."  Sweet boy.  I had no idea.
• And the 49ers are in the Super Bowl.  Isn't that wonderful?  Kind of neat for the city of San Francisco - first the Giants win the World Series, now the 49ers.  If only I cared for the Giants.  Which I don't.

• Well, I think that's all I know for now.  We're making peanut butter for math tomorrow.  Reuben squealed with delight when I told him.  Then he hugged me and said he loved me and 'thank you!!!'  I hope it's as exciting as he's planning it to be.