Snow - A Comparision

Now I don't want to be all snobby, I survive four winters in Northa Dakota so TN is whatever but these people are a little wimpy. We are on Snow Day four, people, Day five if your want to get technical. The technical part is this is a Saturday so school isn't cancelled but they cancelled Super Saturday. However, for TN this is the only day that I will conceed that they could have called...

If you remember I not only have the front steps I have steps that lead around to the side where the garage it so this is a good 4-6 inches. And it is March. Although they ended school two hours early because of one inch of snow. The rest of this stuff came during the night and the children couldn't be happier. They miss ND as much as we do. DD has been comlaining since our first winter in VA and she realized there were places that didn't get snow during the winter. She comes to me one day, Virginia is so boring they don't get snow. When they saw how much snow there was this morning, it was one bowl of cereal for them all and bring on the snow clothes woman. The screen door pushed some snow out of the way and Innie instantly said, this is just like North Dakota. I don't think I'll be seeing them much today, so I won't be too upset about SS being cancelled.

Here are some pictures of previous snow days we have had here. No I am not kidding.

Is that a big scary patch of ice or snow? No a preemptive salting for an ice storm we were going to get. The next day our street was well-prepared for the down pur of rain that wash all that salt down the gutter.

Here is the snowfall that the kids got to play in that they then tracked mud and grass into my kitchen. And it was melted by the time school would've been out.

In ND, in three and a half years we saw two snow days. Both were tail end storms. One in the beginning of October and one in April. The one in October snowed us in because of the falling trees not the snow. The leaves hadn't fallen yet so the trees couldn't take the weight. The road were impassable based off the tree limbs. The April storm was a few feet that hit us after the melt had already started so you can give us that one. I couldn't find the picture of the neighborhood with all the fallen trees, which actually we were spared. We had smart trees that always lost their leaves a few weeks before all the others, the first fall this happened we thought our trees were sick, then that storm hit and we loved our trees, all nine mature of them. But I did find the one of that April storm.

The picture on the right might require a little explanation. That is our walk and front step which was three steps. That little piece of grey you see just next to the vertical line is the front porch and the snow still went above that, that's a snow day. And the other picture shows the snow up to Dan's knee and its still snowing, he just started shoveling before it got too much for him to handle, it was only like 1o am. It kept snowing all day, he had that much to shovel the next day.

One last thing on this "storm" here. It was really just a normal snow. I have been feeling for days this undescribed anxiety. Just that slight balloon swelling in my chest every now and then for no reason. The kids are good, I am keeping on top of everything (as much as can be expected), and I hear from Dan regularly as possible. It's just a nagging in the back of the head that I've come the accept that comes with the deployment territory. For some reason over the past few days it's been a little stronger. So with the snow coming and anticipating SS being cancelled, I spent some money. I rented some movies and the kids and I had movie night last night. But after I got home from getting Bug from school and before getting the other two from school ie opening the front door, I had a wonderful calming moment. I sat on the front couch and watched the snow which was falling at a respectable rate and looked at my still neighborhood. I sat there for 45 minutes, reading a book, watching the snow. Lorelai would be proud of my awe for snow and the power it had over this Southern California girl yesterday. But today the stillness remains and I don't mind that SS is cancelled, it was my work one anyway, and the calm that snow brings has descended.

Even if it's because everyone here is too afraid to drive in it.