It's Cold EVERYWHERE!

My my there has been a lot going on with the weather. It seems like it's cold everywhere but Singapore! It's cold in Ft. Lauderdale, and right up through the state. My sister, Linda, just called and it's snowing in Alabama and will follow them right up into the Atlanta area and home. It appears to be missing us here in Winston Salem, but we have remnants of the last snow all over the place. My friend Brenda just sent me pictures of their house in PA...40 inches! AND they're expecting more on Monday!

Needless to say, all this snow is not good for the businesses in these areas, and I think the kids are even getting sick and tired of snow days. (Just think, when they make them up, there will most likely be beautiful weather outside.) So, I hope you are staying warm and doing something you've put off doing for a long while...something you enjoy. You snowbirds in FL...this just serves to make you happy that at least it's NOT SNOWING; you Floridians...turtlenecks and sweaters cover up a lot of body flaws; everyone else above the Florida line...keep your pajamas on all day if you want, until you decide to go out and play in the snow, and keep that hot chocolate coming.

A Picture Paints A Thousand Words

Look what I've learned to do! It's so exciting. I've been picture-adding all morning. Leah just told me how to do it, so watch-out! You now have visuals and words! Don't think for one minute that now that I have pics that it will cut down on the number and content of my words...but it will today, because I am officially writing THE BOOK. I turned the proverbial corner yesterday and am now on my way.

It's very interesting how a family can start out on the right foot from the very beginning and it continues, for the most part, into today. The Gray family valued education as far back as I can see, along with participating in and giving back to the community. The early ancestors were shop keepers, politically minded, and involved in starting hospitals, growing churches, and helping colleges to prosper. (Look at their Duke involvement.) Not unlike today.

Enjoy the pics. I've got to go and write.

Oh, What a Night

Our beautiful winter wonderland is turning to mush, ever so slowly, due to the rain. It still looks beautiful outside, but the streets are finally melting and school will hopefully be back in session after tomorrow. I say, hopefully, because the moms and kids must be going stir-crazy now that it's raining.

Randy said the front part of the neighborhood is still the hardest to maneuver, and there were three accidents before 10 AM up at the corner of Robinhood and Meadowlark, with one on Country Club, which is en route to work for him. Needless to say, I didn't venture out at all, other than to take Mollie out twice in the middle of the night, hence the title of this blog today.

She rarely makes a peep once I close the bathroom door...except for last night. She awakened me at 2 AM on the dot. I know, because you may remember, Matthew left us his clock that shines the time in blue on the ceiling at night. I thought she'd stop squeaking, and go back to sleep, but she didn't, so I got up, turned off the alarm and took her out. (By "took her out," I mean I stand at the door in my pajamas and bare feet and shut the door and turn on the light to watch and make sure no coyotes or foxes get her. ) She went and came running back in. I reset the alarm, took her back to bed and thought all was well. I thought wrong. Twenty minutes later, she was doing it again. I knew Randy was going to work that morning, so I got up again, happy to let him sleep. (It kind of reminded me for a moment of when I'd get up with the kids when they were little.)

This outing was different...instead of her just going potty in the spot Randy had cleared for her in the snow, she decided she needed to explore new territory, so she goes trotting up to the front yard at a clip. I tear through the house in my bare feet, in the dark, and get to the front door just in time to watch her start up the road in front of the house. I know there are no bedrooms close by, so I step outside onto the cold slate porch and yell in my loudest whisper, "MOLLIE! GET BACK HERE!" (FYI, I watch a lot of the "Dog Whisperer" after hours, and I learned a long time ago, I'm not the Alpha Dog in this house. Randy is.)

Maybe my whisper (Who knows maybe a whisper is sufficient for a dog's keen sense of hearing.) had picked up momentum in the quiet of the night. For whatever reason, she turned around and came back...without doing any doggie business that I could see. So, I reset the alarm, because my sister had just sent me a supposed-to-be-funny note from a burglar, which was in reality supposed to hit home to homeowners to keep everything locked up no matter what...even during inclement weather, which I felt any self-respecting robber would respect.

It wasn't 10 minutes before the whining progressed into a bark. I need to digress a moment...in the course of all of this, the smoke detector battery is beeping upstairs about every 10 seconds. (I'm assuming that is what awakened her to begin with.) I finally yelled at her to get back in her bed, because Randy was awake by then. Her barking went on for about 3 more minutes, so I suggested since he was awake, that Randy go and take her out this time. He was so appreciative that I had taken her out the previous two times, that he gladly obliged. I reminded him to unset the alarm, and check out the battery noise while he was at it. It took him about 20 minutes to do all I had requested and he got back into our warm snugly bed. Mollie was really barking and whining within about 2 minutes. I could not for the life of me imagine what her problem was. Then, I remembered dogs also have a keen sense of smell, so I suggested Randy go upstairs and check for small electrical fires, as I had just pulled a portable electric piano...excuse me...keyboard, out of the attic that day, and I had left it plugged in after years of disuse. I said, "Maybe she smells smoke that we can't smell." So off he trotted back upstairs to check for tell-tale signs of smoke. He's fully awake by now, and realizes he may as well unplug the battery from the smoke detector while he's up, so he goes down the 32 stairs to the basement to get the small ladder, then goes back up and unplugs the little bugger. (The ladder's still there. I guess enough was enough.)

By then we're both cold and irritated and 2 1/2 hours have gone by. Mollie starts up again, and Alpha Dog only has to say one time, "Mollie, go night-night," and we don't hear another peep until the break of day and Skype ringing in on the computer upstairs above our heads. We made it through the night after all.