The Saturday 7

1. I was searching for something on Audible the other day and came across the version of the One Year Bible that I've been doing since last January (it's more like a One and a Half Year Bible in my case). It was only $3, so I bought it, uncertain I'd really get much use out of it. I am not a huge fan of audio books. My mind tends to wander if I'm not really making myself concentrate. And let's be honest, my mind wanders frequently while reading the physical Bible, so I wasn't sure how I'd do with the audio version. However, I was pleasantly surprised! One day this week I didn't feel good and didn't want to get out of bed, so after I dropped the kids off at school, I climbed back under my warm covers and turned on the Bible. Another time, I listened to my day's reading while driving home from the grocery store. I'm really enjoying the convenience of it.

2. I also started a new book this week: Mama Bear Apologetics. It is so good. I whipped through the first five chapters in one day - which is a big deal for me with non-fiction. I can read a fiction book a day, but non-fiction takes me forever to plod through. MBA is very readable and entertaining, as well as fascinating and convicting. More and more these days I'm overwhelmed by the world our kids are growing up in. And I feel woefully inadequate to raise them to know and love Jesus when our culture at large is screaming for them to do anything and everything else. I'm also coming to understand that despite my Christian education (both K12 and college), I was never taught much in the way of apologetics. It's a discipline that terrifies me, so I'm excited to read more about it and hopefully feel more prepared for passing it on to my kids.

3. My weekly college update: I finally e-mailed my advisor to go over some of my concerns about losing my transfer credits. She pulled up my transcript and seemed optimistic that many of my GenEds should be sufficient. She then put me in touch with a "transfer advisor" to work with. I e-mailed him and am waiting for a response. I also e-mailed ACS's school administrator to ask for a job description and qualifications. He confirmed that I need to get an Associate's in Library Science. So I'm feeling a little better about everything overall. Registration for spring semester starts on the 18th, so I've chosen which courses I want. I'm actually going to attempt 15 credits. I'm not sure if we can afford it, but we'll see how much financial aid takes off. I'm also a little wary of the time commitment. I've been surprised by how time consuming the two classes I'm taking this semester are. It's a lot of reading and researching. And my academic writing skills are rusty. But I'm getting good grades and enjoying the wealth of knowledge I'm consuming. I'm excited to keep going with the library classes at least, and hoping I won't have to plumb the depths of my memory to re-take math and Psychology.

P.S. It was announced this week that Michigan residents over the age of 25 can attend community college for free! I immediately started researching community colleges in our area and was disappointed to discover none of them have programs for Library Science. If my transfer credits don't come through, though, I'm definitely going to look into taking whatever I can here for free. But this time, I'm going to double check with my current school that the credits will transfer!

4. Our months of mild winter came to a screeching halt this weekend. Instead of stretching out the snowfall over a few months, we've gotten an entire winter's worth of snow in the past two days. It started Thursday night and accumulated quickly enough that school was called off for Friday before I even went to bed Thursday night. Alarm: off! And then it snowed, and snowed, and snowed, and snowed some more all day on Friday.

Friday at 9 a.m. we had almost 9 inches on our deck table (although there was probably an inch or two of old snow already there).

And on the deck, which drifts a little more, almost 13 inches:

By 4:00, the table was looking like this:

(I switched from the yardstick to the ruler, but that's a 12 inch ruler almost buried.)

And the deck was registering about 15 inches:

Levi for scale. 😂

By 9:45 p.m. the ruler was buried:

Today at 11:00 a.m. we were just short of 16 inches:

I know. I missed my calling as a meteorologist/professional snow measurer. 😂 Our winter weather advisory was extended through tonight, and it's currently snowing up a storm again. We could potentially get another 4 inches overnight! 😯

5. We spent our snow day doing crafts, playing games, and watching TV.

If you're a bad mom like me and you hate constantly spinning the Twister spinner and calling out the instructions, I have a life hack for you: Ask Alexa to play Twister! She'll spin and call for you! Technology for the win!