• When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

My wife's first snowman...

Started by lighthouse,

24 posts in this topic

lighthouse

lighthouse

Posted
Posted

This post is not strictly comic-related... although it is somewhat comical... tongue.gif

 

My wife grew up in south Texas, a region not known for its cold winters... With the exception of the freak Texas snowstorm in 1987, her snow adventures have always taken place on vacation.

 

Now in her early 30s, she had never made a snowman before...

 

Five days ago, while doing some last-minute Christmas shopping, I was this close to driving up into the Cascades with a cooler, filling it with snow, and staging a snowball fight with her on Christmas morning. I joked with her about it afterwards, and she decided that snow would have been a very nice gift for me to give her...

 

So after sacrificing a small goat, chanting in two dead languages, running around skyclad in the yard, and waving copies of Spawn 1 in the air...

 

We woke up to this scene this morning:

 

snowday1.jpg

 

The wife's first snow since we moved into this house... and the first that really stuck since we moved to Oregon...

 

Needless to say, it was a requirement that I get a good fire going, make some hot chocolate, and help the wife make a snowman...

 

I rolled the first ball for her, to show her the technique. You can see it in the pictures on the bottom of the snowman. She did the middle and top sections... tongue.gif

 

The added touches were all her doing... from the Matchlight briquettes to the carrot to the pine boughs to the leopard-print Santa hat...

 

You can see a couple of our yard decorations to the left of the snowman... They were clearly not amused...

 

snowday2.jpg

 

Here you can see his arms a little better... I asked the wife why he had an extra briquette on his neck, and she told me it was a button... Apparently his is a one-button ensemble...

 

snowday3.jpg

 

I realized after taking the first couple pics that you didn't really get a sense of how intimidating this snowman is... The local dogs all came by to bark at it on their daily walks... The golden retriever next door spent a good five minutes growling at it before deciding it was too fearsome an opponent...

 

This pic really shows the malicious nature of the snowman... ready to pounce on the unwary...

 

snowday4.jpg

 

The leopard print hat is really the crowning glory... smile.gif

 

======

 

I know, I know... I could have put this in the Water Cooler...

 

But frankly it's too disturbing to share with the coinees...

 

And just to keep the post on topic... what are your favorite Christmas covers in comics?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
valiantman

valiantman

Posted
Posted
i've never built a snowman before

Put down the comics and get a plane ticket to somewhere with snow!

 

Some people have life ambitions that are insane, like "Climb Mount Everest"...

but everyone should at least put a checkmark by "Build A Snowman".

Link to comment
Share on other sites
doyle033

doyle033

Posted
Posted
i've never built a snowman before

Put down the comics and get a plane ticket to somewhere with snow!

 

Some people have life ambitions that are insane, like "Climb Mount Everest"...

but everyone should at least put a checkmark by "Build A Snowman".

and learning the "ball-rolling" technique!! 27_laughing.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites
comicwiz

comicwiz

Posted
Posted

Great post lighthouse thumbsup2.gif

 

Growing up in Toronto, I could swear that we used to get WAY more snow then we do now. 893scratchchin-thumb.gif

 

Anyhow, I remember almost as if it happened yesterday; I lived at a corner house which ran alongside a crescent. The crescent was about a 300 foot long steep road that used to end at a major intersection. After building one of the worst snowmen in our early childhood lives, my neighbour and myself decided we were going to stick the snowman on a wagon and wheel it all the way down the hill.

 

We figured it would be a good idea to place a sweater, a jacket and hat (the sunglasses were the finishing touch) before we sent our brave snowman off.

 

As we drove the snowman down the hill, we could see neighbours on their porches stand and shriek, and passeby's stare at that abominable site. But the crowning glory was watching the faces of the people in vehicles getting out of the car after thinking it was a real person on the wagon that they had crashed into.

 

We didn't make with that incident, but I was grounded for an entire month. frown.gif

But during that month, I did discover a bunch of early spider-man comics that my brother had hoarded in his closet that made for good reading, so it was not all for naught thumbsup2.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Jenna

Jenna

Posted
Posted

We moved down here to Florida in October 2002 from Snohomish, Washington, and let me just say that I (and my wife and children) miss Washington and the West Coast very, very much. Needless to say, the plans are in motion and we won't be here much longer... should be mid to late next year and we're out of here. There is nothing quite like mountains and snow to humble one's self. Thanks for the pics. smile.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites
garthgantu

garthgantu

Posted
Posted

Lighthouse: Obviously, your wife's snowman is modeled after one of the killer snowmen that stalked Calvin for many days in the Calvin & Hobbes strip...

 

I built my first snowman at the age of four, in our (tiny) backyard in New York City (1968). The following day when I went outside, my snowman was solid black from the soot in the air. I cried. A sad story, I know... I'll pass the Kleenex in a moment...

Link to comment
Share on other sites
lighthouse

lighthouse

Posted
  • Author
Posted
Is that your house in the background, the blue one? That's not wood siding is it? smile.gif

 

Brian

 

That's my neighbor's house... I actually cropped as much of his house out of the picture as I could because the previous owner trashed the place. The last property tax valuation on it was around $190K and my neighbor bought it for $115K, which gives you an idea of what they did to the place... I guess they had a messy divorce and the house went through a battle straight out of War of the Roses... My current neighbor is out there adding value to it just about every weekend...

 

Highlight of my day was when a 10-yr-old girl from down the street came by to see if I wanted her to shovel my walk. It's gotta be the first substantial snow in the area since she was big enough to hold a shovel and she's out being a young entrepreneur... There's a bright future ahead for that young lady...

 

(and no, it doesn't involve working in my shop... 893naughty-thumb.gif)

Link to comment
Share on other sites
lighthouse

lighthouse

Posted
  • Author
Posted
Lighthouse: Obviously, your wife's snowman is modeled after one of the killer snowmen that stalked Calvin for many days in the Calvin & Hobbes strip...

 

I would have never made the connection, but you are absolutely right! smile.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites
lighthouse

lighthouse

Posted
  • Author
Posted
Wow, that looks like a PoS for 115k!! Any idea what the sq. ft is on that property? Needless to say, I feel much better now that I know you don't have wooden siding

 

Our property taxes are among the lowest in the country, so the costs of ownership are very low. People that don't live here buy up houses as investment and rental property, which pushes the home prices up substantially. When the property tax bill for a $300K home here is less than that of a $120K home somewhere else, you can see why homes don't stay at $120K for long...

 

When you have a choice between buying a house with property taxes of $12.73 per $1000 and one with property taxes of $32.49 per $1000 (a sample rate I pulled from the Quad Cities website), you can see why folks are willing to overpay...

 

And if you own property here but don't live here, then you don't have to deal with the fact that $12.73 per $1000 in a state with no sales tax is simply not enough to provide decent roads, schools, police, fire, etc...

 

Best part is... thirteen years ago the state imposed a cap on how much your assessed value can grow at 5% per year. So even if your house doubles in value in three years, you don't have to pay all those extra taxes. Your tax bill is capped based on the value of the house in 1990 (with an annual adjustment). A house down the road from me just sold at $245K, and its property taxes are based on a valuation of $130K. So the real property tax rate is closer to $7 per $1000... It's no wonder a large percentage of the homes in this area are not owned by locals... confused-smiley-013.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Go to topic listing