Art Imitates Life

inspired by the weather this weekend

Stickz Comics, Issue #29! (by Katie)

Addendum to my last

So the Blizzard of 2016 was officially named...


SNOWZILLA

SNOWMAGEDDON 2016!!!

dun dun DUNNNNN....

So, yeah, it blizzarded (is that a word?) here in the great Commonwealth of Virginia.  And because we are south of the Mason-Dixon line, the department of transportation officially doesn't know how to deal with real winter weather.  As you've already seen from news reports, DC pretty much shut down for several days.  Schools were closed; the Federal Government was closed; the Metro was only open underground for a while.  It felt like a page from Katy and the Big Snow.

if only we had Katy to dig DC out!

Winter Wonderlandiness

I should probably just subtitle every post with "Wait, I didn't publish this yet?"

Am I allowed to talk about weather?  Please?  I promise I won't complain about it...

This is actually the first February that I haven't loathed in a while.  Look!  It's so pretty!

reason number zillion to be grateful to the previous owners who moved to Texas

And we have a snowblower now!  That makes a HUGE difference.  Even when the snow is so wet and heavy that it occasionally has to be scooped out of the blower with a giant metal cooking spoon.

Sorry for the tree -- this was the best shot from the living room window.

I love the look of snow on the ground, even several days later when it's no longer fluffy.  Of course, I'm not the one who spent 3 hours shoveling it -- I got to stay inside with the baby and make hot chocolate and run the dryer.

 I only wish Virginia snow plow operators knew how to clear a street -- their favorite way of plowing seems to be 1 1/2 lanes -- or plowing a lane completely, until an intersection, at which point they will dump all their snow on the corners.  This effectively blocks all turn lanes and half the through lanes with what become impenetrable ice blocks a couple days later.

But I'm not complaining!  I'd much rather it were white and icy and difficult to get around than brown and dead everywhere.

Everyone's been getting as much outside time as possible -- and I think this is a first, but at least one child has admitted to me that she is about ready for spring.

Andy prefers riding in style, as opposed to having to walk in his Evil Snow Boots.

I think some people might also be tired of being cold.

And she wonders why she's always running out of socks...  well, wearing FIVE PAIRS at a time might do that!

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Since I first wrote this post, it warmed up and thawed most of the snow (except for hardiest ice blocks).  It was lovely and spring-like this past weekend -- we had windows open and some small people were running around in short sleeves.  I drew the line at sandals, though.

And then it snowed again today. 

It's melting quickly, though.  Yay for mud!

I feel a real kinship with the Dennistons from That Hideous Strength -- I love weather of all kinds.  And not just to complain about it, either.

Stuff and nonsense

Good night, haven't I posted this yet??  Time to stop overthinking and overediting already!

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So.  First picture.

Here are about 32 bags of leaves that we gathered from the yard. (There were actually still a couple more that were frozen to the driveway and had to thaw out before they could be dragged to the street.)  I felt really sorry for the trash collection guys -- our pile there was by no means extraordinary for our neighborhood.  I don't get why our county doesn't just send out a vacuum-thingy truck to suck up all the leaves from the curbside, instead of going through the hassle of putting everything in plastic bags.  Sort of defeats the purpose of having a "green waste" collection day, imho.  But what do I know?  I'm just a humble housewife who's got nothing better to do than improve the world from my living room window.


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(This next section is written for the benefit of the SoCal relatives -- y'know, those who don't have any experience with REAL weather.  The rest of you may feel free to just move along.)

So, the thing about winter in Virgnia is that it's not quite cold enough to be really, you know, all winter-y and stuff.  At least, not for long periods of time.  We get some snow, usually really wet (great for snowballs and forts!) then it melts.

Exhibit A: wet snow

See that bush thingy overhanging the deck?  It's usually tall enough to block our view of the evergreens.

 Often the melted snow doesn't melt quite fast enough and then freezes overnight and causes two-hour-delays for all the schools and government agencies in the area the next day until VDOT finally looks at a thermometer and decides to send out the salt trucks.  (See "what do I know," above.)

The rest of the time, winter here is pretty much a combination of November and February (think dead, chilly, wet, and dark), with a few glorious days of brisk and bright January weather thrown in just to make your blood flow and to affirm that life is indeed beautiful, and to keep everyone from moving to Key West for 4 months out of the year.

But the last couple weeks have been really truly winter-ish.  For example, it snowed and then didn't rain immediately 2 days later!  There was totally all this fluffy (not slushy!) white stuff on the ground and then MORE white stuff came, before the first stuff was gone!  Of course, because it thawed just a teensy bit during the days (hey, 35 is above freezing!) and then refroze at night, it got all pitted and crusty.  Perfect for sledding!  The kids have been in heaven.  My dryer has been working overtime. In between my usual 3-4 loads per day, I've also been drying multiple loads of mittens, hats, scarves, and snow pants.  Maybe it will break soon and then I can get a new one!  Happy thoughts!

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Hey, speaking of dryers, have you ever noticed how much cold air comes IN your dryer vent when it's freezing outside?  (Sometimes if I've left a load in the dryer for a short period of time, I can't tell if it's actually completely dry b/c all the clothes are so dang cold!)  Is there something I should be doing about this, besides running the dryer all day?

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The kids have discovered how to use the voice note feature on our old defunct cell phone.  (by-the-bye, a disconnected flip phone is one of the best. toys. ever.)  This has led to much auditory hilarity the last few days.  For your reading pleasure, I here reproduce, verbatim, Daniel's latest recording:

"Oh yeah, oh yeah, wock and woll!
Oh yeah, oh yeah, baby,
oh yeah, oh yeah, baby,
oh yeah, oh yeah, baby,
oh yeah, oh yeah, baby,
oh yeah, oh yeah, baby,
oh yeah, oh yeah, baby,
oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah!"

He then went on to record several more songs, some wock and woll, others that sounded like "Deck the Halls" punctuated with "yeah, yeah, yeah"s.

Most of Joseph's recordings involve gorilla sounds.

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After we removed the tree, we arranged the living room, so now we can use the actual "fireplace"!

Mmmm, nothing like glowing fake logs to warm up a room!

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And speaking of warm, we got new windows!!!!1!!  And the heavens opened, and all the angelic choirs sang together in praise of rooms without noticeable drafts running along the floors.  Thankfully the windows were installed on a day that was in between two huge freezes, so the house only chilled down to the 50s while the old ones were being knocked out and the new ones put in.  These guys were awesome -- they had a whole crew working simultaneously so the removal and installation of our 20+ windows took only 2 hours.  (All the caulking and external sealing took a few more hours, but meanwhile the house was able to warm back up.)

It has made SUCH a difference.  We put a thermometer in the north-facing back bedroom (currently the Playroom) to see just how cold it got down there at night before we replaced the windows.  Our thermostat is always set to 67 -- the Playroom registered at a cool 50 degrees.  That's WITH storm windows.  I knew it always felt cold in there!  The girls' room wasn't much better -- they woke up in a 56 degree room -- and I think that's only b/c their body heat warmed up the room!  They had to use every extra blanket in the house at night.  After the new windows, the back rooms are still colder than the rest of the house (58 in the Playroom), so we'll need to get a space heater to make them truly cozy.  But still!  The curtains don't flutter in the breeze on windy days any more, so it's a vast improvement.

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Despite all my commenting about how freezing cold it's been, I really do like winter.  Probably only because I haven't experienced any pipes bursting yet.  That might change my perspective.

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Sorry, another snippet having to do with the cold, but at least the cold is the backdrop to the real story:

We had a pet bird for 10 minutes.

I noticed a bird floundering around under the crepe myrtles the other day.  It looked like it had hurt its wing, so I left it alone, figuring that one of the neighbor's cats would find it and put it out of its misery pretty soon.  (Is that really cruel of me?)  A couple hours later, Katie informed me she had caught a bird by putting a little plastic pail over it.  I didn't have high hopes for the bird's future with us, since I figured it was not long for this earth.  But I fixed up a cardboard box with some water and bird seed, and we brought the bird inside.  It did not look good.  Its wing looked back to normal, but it mostly scrunched itself into a corner and huddled there with its eyes closed.

We got out a bird book to figure out what kind it was -- it was really pretty, yellow with dark striped wings.  It was either a kind of flycatcher or goldfinch or warbler.  The kids were fascinated.   I don't think any of them had ever been this close to a wild bird before.  I tried to warn them to leave the poor thing alone, so they wouldn't terrify it to death.  They were respectful enough not to be reaching into the box to pet it, at least, but after a few minutes Joseph inevitably kicked the box and the bird was up and away!

Hilarity ensued.

It flew into the den, repeatedly bonking its head on the ceiling -- I chased it around -- finally caught it -- accidentally released it -- chased it around the den -- caught it again and released it outside.  It flew into a tree and commenced cheeping, so it was fine.

My guess was that it was stupefied from the cold that morning (I think it was one of those lows-in-the-single-digits nights), and just needed to warm up for a bit.  I haven't seen any more like him, so I'm wondering if he missed the migration boat.

Isn't he pretty?  I wish I had taken more close-up pictures, before Joseph kicked his box.

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I joined a women's Bible Study called "Walking With Purpose."  Now, I tend to approach all female-oriented spiritual groups with mild suspicion, half-expecting the usual slip-shod, sugary female thinking typical of such groups, for which I have no patience.  But I signed up, thinking, "Eh, what the heck, it'll only be 6 evenings out of my life, if it's horrible, and I might get some independent benefit out of it from reading the Bible more during that time."  But it is so, so good. The actual Bible reading is in little snippets, and you really dig deep down, finding the meaning of the selected verses for your own life.  It is so beautiful and affirming and challenging in a non-threatening and non-depressing way.  It's helping to give me a little clarity about several things I was struggling with lately and didn't even know how to begin to address.

The program we're doing at this parish is only 6 weeks long, but I think they also produce an 8- or 9-month long series.  I'm definitely signing up.  I highly recommend this study, if you can find a group near you!

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Our parish priests are from Denver.  The pastor wore a bright orange shirt under his chasuble at Mass this morning.

I'm beginning to question their intercessory power.

Homeschoolers don't get snow days.

However, they do get 3-hour recesses followed by hot chocolate in front of the fireplace. And they DON'T have snow make-up days in the middle of June when by rights they ought to be swimming in the pool.

So, here we go, it's snowing AGAIN. Like, blizzarding snowing.

It's very blowy and cold. Don't think we'll be going outside today.

Yeah, go ahead and laugh, you happy little snowmen. YOU might like it when it's 17* outside, but those of us made of flesh and blood get tired of it after a while.

Actually, we're holding up very well. Mr. Pickles is now on Day 6 of being at home, since DC is simply shut down. It's like being on vacation! (And who knows when the streets will be passable enough to sustain rush hour traffic again!) We're all getting very spoiled. And I'm trying not to feel stir crazy. I'm just sooooo grateful all our power lines are underground, so we've been one of the lucky ones whose power never went out.

We went out shopping for groceries yesterday, important stuff like more chips and bacon. Mr. Pickles the Minnesnowtan drove, so Li'l Miss California wouldn't have to worry about getting stuck in the slush or slipping on the ice (which had formed from the unplowed snow the previous day melting in the sun and then freezing overnight). The store was strip-mined -- the milk and eggs were GONE. I was surprised to see some bread on the shelves -- that truck must have made it through. And once again it took us 20 minutes to get through the checkout line. We bought bagels to keep the munchkins pacified. I hope the dairy trucks get through soon -- I don't know what we're going to do if we can't make hot chocolate!! :)

And the snow is still pretty to look at.

I wish WE had an outdoor skating rink.

Day 3 of The Storm That Ate Virginia

Final snow measurement on Sunday using the extra-accurate method of holding up the snow shovel to a pile of snow, marking the measured length against my arm, and then measuring my arm with a tape measure inside the house several hours later: 26 inches.


In sum: it's deep. The snow comes up over Miriam's knees, almost to Katie's waist, and up to Joseph's chest. Miriam had to figure out a very creative way of getting around, since it was nearly impossible for her to trek through.





On Sunday we actually made it to Mass. Mr. Pickles scouted out the roads early in the morning and found them ugly, but manageable. We actually made it to church in record time. I think there were MAYBE 6 other cars in the parking lot. Fortunately two of the women who were there could cantor and play the organ, so we had our own personal angel choir! It was lovely.

Getting home from Mass took us an hour. The street that the church was on was never plowed, so we followed a bumpy, rutted, one-lane track (apologizing to our car's alignment the whole way) to the much-better-plowed church parking lot. Coming out, however, we couldn't take a left turn (because the bumpy rutted one-lane track didn't go that way) so we had to go the other way along a godawful slushy barely-plowed road. The road was just barely wide enough for two cars, and at one point the inevitable happened: trying to make room for an oncoming car, we slid over to the side of the road, where the plow driver had helpfully plowed out part of the ditch. Whee.

Most thankfully, we weren't stuck in the ditch very badly, or for very long. A couple guys driving 4wds stopped to offer assistance (they tried to push the van which was totally fruitless, since the snow was soooo slippery), and a man using his tractor to plow his driveway offered us the use of his shovel. (The smell of the exhaust from the tractor reminded me so strongly of Maywood and Grampa B!) Then an angel disguised as a nice man with a very powerful pickup and a tow rope came by, and he pulled us out back into the road. Even his truck was slipping & sliding while he was hauling us out. He said we were the 4th or 5th car to get stuck on the road that morning, while the plow driver was sleeping in his truck at the end of the street. Nice. Thank you for an eventful Sunday, VDOT. We took a much longer way to get home, choosing roads that we assumed would be plowed better, ha ha, silly us. Everywhere was AWFUL. We even saw TWO SNOWPLOWS stuck in the snow.

However, it could have been SO much worse for us. While we were dealing with our own snowbank, we watched as a much larger SUV plowed into a much larger snowbank 100 ft in front of us. I didn't believe Mr. Angel would be able to do anything about that poor truck -- the snow came up to the dashboard. I hope they weren't stuck for long.

Well, we managed to make a donut stop on the way home, so all was not lost. :) After brunch, we all went outside. I finally braved the snow. My snow boots went kaput last year, and I haven't found a suitable replacement yet (nor am I likely to until next fall. serves me right for being picky. fashion before comfort!) Mr. Pickles fashioned a snow cave for the kids while everyone else on the street was busy shoveling out their cars.

Look, look! See Miriam in the snow cave.

See Katie in the snow cave.


See Joseph eye the snow cave suspiciously and refuse to go in.

Finally Mr. Pickles took the kids to this monster hill at the back of the neighborhood to go sledding. Katie is turning out to be a little daredevil! I would have been intimidated by that slope, but she just shrieked with glee the whole way down. I can't believe I didn't take any pictures -- I think I was starting to lose feeling in my fingers and toes at that point. :) Joseph wasn't so hot about sledding -- he was perfectly content watching from the sidelines and making comments.

While Mr. Pickles was taking the kids sledding, I had the bright idea that I would clear this path to the back gate. As I was huffing and puffing my way through, I realized as I was about a foot from the gate that our gate opens outward... and there were over 2 feet of snow on the other side. Sigh. Pregnant women should not be allowed to think without adult supervision.

There's nothing like frizzy snow hat hair to end the day.

Not Quite Buried...

...but pretty close.

The snow started at just about 10 Friday morning. I had an 11:30 doctor appointment that I had already had to reschedule twice, so I figured if I could still get around, I wasn't going to postpone it again. It wasn't that cold yet, so none of the snow falling actually stuck to the road. It was very wet, though, so you still had to drive carefully, plus visibility was pretty poor (although driving in snow is cool -- it's like flying through the stars).

By the evening, it looked like this outside:

The kids spent several hours outside in the afternoon. Because the snow was still so wet, they came in completely SOAKED. Miriam says she froze her toes. I had to dry the neighbor girl's things before I could send her home in good conscience.

Warming up is the best part.

This is what greeted us this morning.



(this last one courtesy of the resident 5yo photographer.) (and yes, we're living in the past)

The snow even covered part of the storm door -- Mr. Pickles spent hours clearing off the steps and walk, and digging a path around the van. I should have measured the thickness right here.

Oh wait, that's right, I did -- the snow is Joseph-waist-high. He doesn't appreciate being used as a ruler. He says it's cold.


I love the neighbor's wipers poking out of the snow, like two little antennae! The neighborhood plow has been working diligently all day -- not that you could tell. In 10 minutes everything was just whited out again. The snow finally stopped this evening just before dinner. Who knows when all the streets will be safe enough to drive, though.

So, since we're not going anywhere for a while, today we:

-completely rearranged the girls' bedroom
-vacuumed their whole room
-reorganized all their bins of dress up clothes, doll clothes, purses, dollies, and animals
-found lots of missing socks, in addition to old bandaids (ew)
-rehung the pictures in their room
-played in the snow
-ran the dryer
-drank hot chocolate to warm up
-answered the doorbell approximately 147 times
-repeated 147 times to neighborhood friends that the girls' things would be dry in an hour
-made rice krispy treats and dyed them blue in honor of the ice and snow
-played Uno while eating blue rice krispy treats
-rejoiced mightily when the dryer was finally done
-played in the snow again
-toasted toes in front of the fireplace
-ran the dryer for the 293rd time today
-had ice cream cones for dessert
-cleaned up after one child who ate dinner, then an ice cream cone, then a double-stuff Oreo, then spun around and around the kitchen until the inevitable happened

I'm beginning to regret moving around the girls' dresser. And with Mr. Pickles' marathon shoveling, we're both pretty creaky tonight!

And now, to do it all again tomorrow! I think we'll make brownies, play with Oobleck, watch a movie, and, of course, play in the snow.

Oh, and it's supposed to snow again on Tuesday. I wonder if any of the grocery stores will have restocked by Tuesday morning. I think I'm going to follow Theresa's example and get up reeeeeally early to shop before the rest of the galloping hordes.