Snow Day Entertainment

While I may be at work today, I know lots of people are home, snowed in.  I decided to help entertain people and keep you occupied - ya know, for your own good.  So here goes: 

1.  Make a donation to the Philly Fight for Air Climb!  Pick any member of Team For Little Debbie (link here).  If you need a reason to donate, please see this, this, or this.  

2.  Order a For Little Debbie t-shirt!!! This is a small fundraiser, but I'm hoping that each member of our team, plus 40 more people will all be sporting our For LD shirts in 44 days.  Short Sleeve are $14 and Long Sleeve are $18.  You can find the order form here. 

3. Thank a soldier.  I'm not picky about organizations, branches of the military, or how you say thanks.  Just Do It.  

4.  Help us decide what kind of car Kevin should buy.  Extra bonus points for ridiculous items such as 'short enough Jessica can reach the roof' OR comes in the same two tone paint job as Emma Jean.  What's that, you don't know who Emma Jean is? Okay, I'll blog about that someday too! 

5.  Guess what church I grew up in.  I'll give you one clue:  my boss is wrong, and try as he might, I will not admit to being Amish.  

6.  Google 'Surprise Military Homecomings' and try to tell me they aren't the most emotional, amazing videos on the internet.  

7.  Go play in the snow... 

I don't want to forget your voice...

Let's start this post with something most of my generation will find ridiculous:  

Kevin and I have a home phone

Yep, like one that has a phone cable, plugs into the wall, and an answering machine.  Now - it is portable, so it's not the total power outage solution, but is better than nothing.  After living in Kennett where Verizon sucked at our home, a land line was incredibly helpful.  We kept the home phone when moving to Downingtown, although it took me a bit to get it hooked up.  My dad had a set of two phones, with the built in answering machine at his house.  He said they were spares (huh Dad?), so we "acquired them" like we do many things from his house.  

When Kevin and I finally hooked them up, we made a test call to our cell phones and everything worked - hooray, end of thought process.  Except, the story gets way better.  

Two weeks ago, just before we left for Seattle, the home phone rang.  Kevin and I were laying on the couch, and knowing that we hadn't even given anyone the number, just let it ring.  When the answering machine picked up - I cried.  You see, the answering machine saved the recording from the last person who used the phones.  The message when the answering machine picks up is Mary Elyn's.  And she says the phrase I must have heard on her answering machine a hundred times: 

"I'm not lost, I'm around here somewhere" 

and ends with 

"have a blessed day"

I don't have the heart to delete it - and haven't figured out how to record it and maintain the audio quality yet.  But you'd better believe that it made my day, my week, my month to hear her voice and those silly phrases that I've missed for two years.  It also made me remember that the only recordings we have of Mom's voice are probably old home movies - I guess I need to get started transferring those while they're still in good shape.  Happy tears, and memories of the most amazing grandmother isn't such a bad way to end the day.