9:52 a.m.

It was late in the day when I finally got dressed up to go for a walk. I'd just taken a batch of oatmeal bread out of the oven (and made two pizza crusts from the dough) and had finished most of my day's office work. The boys had been home from school for almost an hour. It was only as I was getting my ski pants on that Everett looked out the window and informed me that the schoolbus was stuck in the driveway. When I got out there, two vehicles had already stopped on the road to find out what was happening, Scott's mom was out there talking to the busdriver and kids, and Scott's dad was moving snow with a tractor.

You can't tell much from the picture, but there is so much snow that the driveway is about three feet of packed snow and the bus has gone off it. Its tires on one side are in the "ditch."

In the end, the tractor tires just spun when Ivan tried to pull the bus out. Men came with a backhoe and a grader, moved a bunch more snow, and then basically winched the bus out. I can't explain because I don't know what all the tools they used are called.

Then I went for my walk:

My sister Joan called yesterday and we had quite a long conversation. Halfway through it Dad called her on her cellphone; he was going to come over to her place. When he got there a half-hour later and Joan and I were still chatting enthusiastically, he quipped "Sorry, don't mean to cut your call short!"

I'm still in my pyjamas here. Have to get ready for my weekly trip to town. Am meeting with my lawyer again to finish up papers to apply to the courts for Emil's guardianship -- he's an adult now, since he turned 18, so I'm no longer automatically his guardian -- and will also get groceries and mail, pick up a book the library has in for me, visit Grandma, and bring Everett home from his piano lesson. Then I'll have to work a few hours in the office as well as come up with something for supper. It'll be a full day but at least it's starting off nice and slow, the way I like it.

Now Playing: Eliza Gilkyson, Misfits

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