A Lot of Snow

Our home under a white blanket - the snow is here!













Well, the snow has arrived and this Southern girl is getting baptized by fire. OK, maybe not that bad, but it's definitely a challenge!

As you probably heard on the news, we got a share of the winter storms that have been moving across the northern part of the country. We woke up Monday morning to a solid blanket of snow on everything - it looked like a few inches, but weather.com says it was only 1.16". I think the perceived depth was created by the plowing. One thing I didn't think about was how the plowing of the roads and the driving lanes of parking lots creates huge piles of snow on the sidewalks and in the parking spaces. This created two issues for me during the day. The first was that we didn't have a shovel, so I couldn't clear the area behind my car to back it out more easily. I ended up trying to just flatten out the area a bit by kicking and stomping the chunks of snow and ice and breaking them up with my ice scraper (which I broke later that night trying to do the same thing in preparation for the next morning). The second issue was that I had to do a lot of zigzagging on the sidewalks as I walked from my car to my office, because in some places the plowing had created 1- or 2-foot piles of snow, which were quickly becoming slippery ice blocks.

The driving itself really wasn't bad - it was basically like driving in rainy weather, but now that the ice and snow have started to accumulate, I'm finding the need to be more and more cautious (maybe I'm wrong, but you can't be too careful, right?). I got the most scared during the day when I got home and found the seminary parking lot to be somewhat slippery, and it took me about 15 minutes to maneuver the car into our parking space. It probably wasn't as dangerous as I thought, but once again, there's never too much caution for a snow newbie like me.

Before we went to bed, Ben and I ventured outside again to try and clear off our cars and the space around them to keep some of the snow and ice from accumulating too much at night. This morning Ben was a wonderful husband and went outside to clear off, warm up, and move the car for me (so I wouldn't have to go all-terrain on the built-up piles again) before he went to class. He also graciously went out and bought a big shovel, a new ice scraper, and a smaller collapsible shovel that I could keep in my car. Thanks, Ben!

Other comments on the first couple of snow days:
- My arms and hands were almost unspeakably sore from all the scraping and shoveling. I felt like I had just done Dragon Boat again.
- The snow is definitely really pretty, and I know it just takes some getting used to. But as one of my co-workers said on why she likes Texas more than New England - "At least you don't have to shovel humidity."
- Everyone at work obviously kept saying this was mild. Yikes. Please keep us in your prayers!

OK, enough rambling. Here are more pictures.

My bootprints


















Trying to defrost my car

















A freezing Longhorn