The Weather Report

It's snowing. A light dusty fall of snow -- very pretty. I don't remember it ever snowing this early in New Jersey, although I understand that this year, it did. In general, I'm expecting colder weather around here than anywhere else I've lived before.

But what I didn't expect was the WIND. That was one thing we didn't have much of in our area of Jersey, at least. Yeah, we had occasional windy days in Kansas, with gusts that would sweep you off of your feet. On summer days, it could feel like a blast from a furnace. Hard to describe if you've never experienced it.

But we've been in Iowa about a month now, and I bet almost a third of that time, the wind has been strong enough to turn an umbrella inside out. Leslie's room is a spooky place to be on a windy night. It sounds like a little girl crying outside her window. I'm grateful neither girl has brought up the "haunted house" idea, or we'd probably have serious problems on our hands.

Yesterday afternoon I put out the trash and recycling--including a bunch of empty cardboard boxes we'd unpacked. By evening, the wind had picked up again. The trash can was knocked over. The recycle tub was in the middle of the yard with the empty cans and milk jugs strewn everywhere. And the boxes were nowhere to be seen.

I feel a little guilty. I'm a litterbug. I just sent six or seven cardboard boxes flying through the atmosphere to land in someone else's yard and trash it up. But at that point, there was nothing I could do. There were gone. And how was I to know it was going to happen?

Anyway, the inclement weather has altered our afternoon plans. The homeschool group is going bowling instead of hiking along the river. Wise move, I'd say. Although I was looking forward to the hike.

And this evening we are invited to the home of the family we met at the pumpkin patch last week for dinner. I hope those plans don't change for the weather. And I hope we have a pleasant, sociable evening. We could use one.