Reading Week

This past week has been our winter break, also known as reading week. Lots of people go away to warm places during this time, but we stayed home and worked, caught up on things, and got some things done around the house. However, I did spend more of the past week than not in my pajamas or sweatpants, so it was definitely like a vacation. I am not looking forward to going back to teaching tomorrow morning – I already have more emails in my inbox that need to be dealt with first thing tomorrow than I had for most of the past week combined. After this week this semester will be half over, and I can start the countdown to spring :-)

Some highlights from the past week:

I ate the last of the ice cream that I made. I will definitely be making it again.

We made fondue using the fondue set that Jeff got me for my birthday. Vegetables and a homemade dark rye bread:

More than one person had gotten stuck on a bank of ice left by a snow plow in our street. People trying to park across the street from us were finding that once they drove on to that section of clumped icy snow, they would require assistance to move either forward or backward. Jeff went out to help one guy, but it turned out that he needed more than a push, and had called a tow truck to lift him off the ice. That particular case ended in a bit of a disaster when the boom from the tow truck went through the poor guy's back window. Apparently he had his car in reverse instead of neutral when the tow truck hooked up. Anyway, after all this our across-the-street neighbor decided to try to remove the offending blockage of ice. Jeff saw her out there with just a snow shovel, and decided he really should head out and help with his favorite ice-busting tool, the mattock. The two of them ended up making short work of it, and now people can park on our street without fear.

I have been extremely jealous hearing about all of the spring flowers blooming other places, particularly on the West Coast, and this ridiculous ice and snow and cold has made me a bit homesick. We still have a good solid month and a half or two of winter left, and after almost 4 months already, I'm ready for it to be over! Yesterday I went downtown to go shopping, and parked less than a block from my destination. The sidewalks were cleared but the streets were not (the streets here are pretty much uniformly covered in hardpacked snow and ice), and I slipped and fell headed across a crosswalk. There is enough for anyone to complain about with these long cold winters, but it is especially difficult for anyone with a mobility disability. I forget sometimes that I have to be careful about where I go alone, because I might encounter something like this – a crosswalk in a busy and supposedly pedestrian friendly part of downtown – that I cannot safely navigate without help. It makes me want to stay home and stay inside!

I am trying to make the most of it though. By becoming a member of the Regina Ski Club and Saskatchewan Wheelchair Sports Association, I have been allowed to borrow a kneeling sit ski for the rest of the winter. On Friday we were able to get out and enjoy the snow a bit, and I think that as I am able to get out more it will be easier to tolerate and/or embrace the winter weather :-)