Today was very cold. Usually, by noon the temperature is up around 68 - 70 and it stays there until around five. We have our thermostat set at 65 during the day, and it came on several times, even into the afternoon which it doesn't usually do. :( I went outside to our storage shed once, and the air had that crisp cold scent that it gets when snow is imminent. We have not had snow, but we HAVE had our first hail of the season this evening. It was quite lite and melted on contact but it was obviously hail.

I went through a few boxes of stuff in the dining room today and either got rid of it or it got put away. There's not really a huge noticeable difference, but I see it and that's what counts. :D

I managed to tear a chunk out of my finger when I was rearranging stuff in the big chest freezer. I caught it between the little basket and the side but my fingers were so frozen I didn't know I'd done any damage until several minutes later when I had finished putting everything away and my fingers had a chance to thaw out whereupon it started bleeding pretty good. :( I did notice that it's time to defrost the freezer though, and this is the perfect time of the year to do it. It's so cold outside that it won't matter if I put the frozen stuff in coolers on our back porch while it's done. I also tried to cut my thumb off. I was using the very useful always sharp knife that my father got me for mother's day a couple of years ago to saw the dowels I got for the magic wands in half (they don't need wands as long as they are tall) when it slipped. I nicked the corner of my thumb but didn't feel anything and there was no blood so I assumed that I hadn't done any damage. I put it out of my mind but it's been hurting all afternoon. I finally took a look at it and found that it had sliced neatly just to the left of the nail. It's not that bad, just annoying.

Carey surprised me with a small opera performance this evening. He came home and informed me that we were dropping the kidlets off at his parents and we'd just have time to make it. It was 45 minutes long. A man dies, and his family was quite put out when they realized that his considerable fortune and properties had been willed to a local monastery. So followed them griping about it, and then the father of a girl that one of the family members wishes to marry comes up with the idea of pretending to be the dead man to dictate a new will to the lawyer. The family tells him how to divvy up the spoils except for three items, the ones most sought after, and left that up to him. Each bribed him and all assumed they'd been successful until he told the lawyer to leave them to himself! And the family could do nothing because not only would they go to prison but also lose a hand for forgery and fraud. He threw them all out of the house and they grabbed what they could on the way out. He wasn't all bad though. He in turn gave it all to his daughter for her dowry and she married the man she wanted so it was still in the family, just not the way they had intended it. :D It was quite amusing and I enjoyed it.

It was deuced cold though and there was already frost on the ground when we dropped the kids off at 6:30. And poor Carey, the zipper on his nice jacket has broken so he was pretty cold. The kids were well behaved for Papa Stu. I think renting Spongebob for them helped a lot. :D Also, the boys' boots came in today and they couldn't wait to show them off. LOL

Kitty is a pop fiend. Whenever anyone has one, she goes out of her way to steal it. Often it's cute, although her antics get her in trouble quite often. Carey stopped at Jack in the Box on our way home, picking up a couple of combo's for us. He had rootbeer and I had dr. pepper. Of course, she decided that only mine would do but she couldn't have it with the caffeine. So every time I turned around I saw her cute fuzzy purple backside hightailing away from me and clutching that pop for dear life. Heh And every time she got caught with it and drug back, she always made her cute little surprised "O" with her mouth that's just adorable and she knows it makes us smile. Her new word today is "kitchen".

Speaking of opera, Carey has exposed the kiddies and they love it! I never even thought of doing this and it never entered my head that they'd actually like it! We ordered Pavarotti's Opera Made Easy ~ My Favorite Opera for Children and the little buggers have gone crazy over it. And this is the real stuff, too. I thought we'd try one of the cd's with the songs translated into English at a later date. They sound better in Italian anyway. Just today, Charles amazed me and it really brought home just how well they like it. I had put in our Most Amazing Dinosaur Songs and it went through two or three songs before it stopped. I turned around thinking Kitty was messing with the computer or something but here's Charles with the drive open and exchanging the discs. When I asked him what he was doing, he said he didn't like the dino songs and he wanted to listen to Madame Butterfly! They'd been listening to that a lot lately because Carey been listening to opera's on Youtube and they dance around it to it quite often. So, we'll need to see about getting another cd or two, and perhaps some books written for children to help them with it. If they like it this much, there's no reason I can see to deny them. If it's not opera they're wanting to listen to, it's Put the Lime in the Coconut! Sigh.... I found a vid of Kermit the Frog and other various muppets performing it and they demand to listen to it at least once a day. It's getting old. LOL