In Which We Make A Winter Wonderland

Christmas has come early in the McGuffey household.

This is not because we have bought a tree, or put up decorations, or started our shopping. This is because it snowed.

In our dryer.

See, Jeremy can't transfer from his wheelchair directly onto his commode without great difficulty, so usually he transfers from the wheelchair to the hospital bed and then to the commode, leaving his feet propped up on the bed. Apparently when I bundled up the sheets to wash them I forgot this relevant fact.

So when I pulled them out of the dryer and discovered that they were covered in about 8,000 tiny white flecks which were clinging to his microfiber comforter like it was velcro and sloughing off onto the carpet in great white sheets, I at first thought that the stitching had come out of the side of the blanket. That is until I found a big piece of cardboard caught inside one of the pillow cases. Upon making this discovery I stomped over to Jer.

"You left a notebook under your covers, and now all of your linens are covered in paper!" I accused, thrusting out the offending cardboard under his nose for him to view. He glanced at it.

"That's a toilet paper roll," he said.

Yes, the almost completely full toilet paper roll that was sitting in plain sight on the middle of his bed from an earlier trip to the commode. That toilet paper roll. Whoops.

Teach me to try and read and do laundry at the same time.

I didn't get a whole lot done today other than creating my own personal unseasonal blizzard. I'd intended to get out and work in the garden this afternoon, but a phone call from the school nurse while I was in the car on the way to pick up Connor nixed that. Seems he got all limp and turned gray on them for about five seconds in the middle of his snack time.

While he didn't follow his usual modus operandi-- he didn't stop breathing, didn't get really irritated afterwards, and didn't fall asleep-- he was very pale and lethargic about ten minutes later when I got there so it's probably safe to conclude he had some sort of mini-seizure. Of course we took it really easy the rest of the day just in case this was a lead-in to something more spectacular. Thankfully nothing else untoward happened. We always figure it's better safe than sorry with this sort of thing. This is the first time he's had any sort of incident at school, and I hope that's as much as they ever have to see. Connor in full-blown seizure mode is a scary, scary thing.

It ended up being a good thing that I wasn't out in the garden anyway, as I opened up the door about the time I would have been out there to go and check the mail and it was sleeting. This is the first real winter weather we've had thus far, and I'm hoping it'll be some of the last. I don't mind working in the rain (here in the Pacific Northwest during the fall and winter if you don't work in the garden in the rain you don't work in it at all) but I draw the line at sleet. Sleet is somehow wetter than rain, if that makes any sense. At least, I think so. And dragging your fingers through it to find buried ivy vines would not be my idea of fun.

So I spent the day curled up at home with a cup of hot cider, playing with Connor, cooking yummy things, and (of course) reading.

You will be happy to know I didn't attempt them all at the same time.

~Jess