I know a handful of people who have never seen snow. They seem to think it's some kind of mystical, Christmas card kind of playland. Most want to see it and play in it at least once.
I must admit that a nice calm snowfall is a beautiful thing to watch. As you sit warm and cozy indoors and watch through a window, it does have a magical quality about it. It can also be very fun to play in for hours. It's a great way to spend time with the kids and be a kid again yourself. That is, when you have nothing else to do and have the luxury of playing in the snow.
The common realities of snow usually go more like this. You wake up to 5 inches at 4 am. Not enough to close schools. Better get out and start shoveling for the next 2 hours, just so you can get the car out of the driveway in time to get the kids to school. It's about 4F, the wind is blowing and it's dark. You now start your workout for the day, there will not be need to go to the gym today (not that I ever feel that need).
As you are working up a sweat, your ears are in danger of cracking and breaking off, even under your hat (damn that wind). When you get about 2/3 of the way done a snowplow will barrel down the street clearing the road and dumping a wall of heavy, slushy, snowy ice about 2 feet high at the bottom of the driveway. You curse out loud and continue with your work. After about an hour and a half you get to that ice wall and think that your back will never forgive you. Once that is done you head inside to warm up and take off your wet snow covered clothes just in time to put them back on and take Eldest to school. This will be a fun ride. The plows have cleared the snow, but not the layer of underlying ice. You get to play Russian roulette with your brakes!
Once everyone is delivered where they need to be you finally get into the nice warm house and a hot shower. After getting dressed, you trek back out to the grocery store for a few necessities. You know, the stuff you are supposed to bring to the classroom party and completely forgot about. After the check out you get to carry the preschooler ~she's wearing pretty shoes for her school party~ while pushing a cart to the car through slushy yucky muck.
After the school day is done, there is no time to play in the snow. Not even counting that it is only 10F and too cold to play outside anyway. Homework, dinner and dress the gang for the school Christmas concert. Back through all the muck again. At least the roads are improved.
Back home and everyone off to bed. Wake the next morning and reach for the Ben Gay, realize that you shoveled the driveway but never got back to do the sidewalk. See on the news that there is an ice storm in the forecast for today/tonight. Curse again and say forget it. I'll have to do it again tomorrow anyway.
The moral to this story is this. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow is only if you have no place to go. Other than that, it can stay on your Norman Rockwell Christmas cards. Maybe Santa will bring me a snow blower. Nah, I haven't been that good.
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Unfortunately, that snow blower won't touch that underlying layer of ice! So you'll fall on your a** as you go back out to clear the sidewalk.
My favorite scenario: dad is out of town & I get to become the "meanest mommy in the world" b/c I won't go searching for 3 different sets of snow pants, snow coats, & snow boots to send the kids out into this snow-covered icy wonderland, so that I can avoid spending 6-8 hours in the ER with a broken (fill in the blank) and three other kids who aren't getting as much attention as the one who is injured. Gee, isn't the snow beautiful!
Awww...aren't they (almost) sweet--my word verification is "santo".
Wow. I've never heard the Winter Wonderland described so..., so....un-happily.
I understand where you are coming from, though. People used to tell me how much they liked a nice breeze. I told them to come visit me in El Paso when the wind blows from March until May. They may call it a breeze, but in dry El Paso we used to call it what it was: a sandblaster.
Amen Sister! You hit the nail on the head! I know we live several hours away from each other but it seems we're experiencing the same weather.
Which is why I love where I live in Arizona. We get some hail once a year and a handful of rains but we have virtually no weather issues to speak of.
Oh, except you fry 3 1/2 months out of the year. But no special clothes required. except perhaps a swimming suit.
I agree in that snow is MUCH better when you don't have to go anywhere.
I have to admit though, I totally don't mind shoveling. Once. (per snowstorm) I look at it like one extra workout. It's when we have those snowstorms that go on and on and you end up shoveling two or three times IN ONE DAY that I want to scream and pull my hair out!
BTW, I'm headed to Woodman's today! I was going to go tomorrow, but think the weather indicates that today will be better! I'll wave in your general direction when I get there. :)
It snowed quite a bit here in Las Vegas...schools are closed today...
the airport closed yesterday...
it's very beautiful.... the last time I saw it snow here like this... I was 13 in 1974...
Merry Christmas!!
Here in the Northwest, when we get 1/2 inch of slush they practically close down the city. Schools close even for just the threat of snow. It's not snowing today, the temperatures are well above freezing, but the schools are closed. I'm sure kids here are going to grow up much less educated than those in your neck of the woods.
PS - why is my word verification "I Lose?"
I grew up in Connecticut and lived a significant portion of my adult life in the Baltimore-Washington area (where believe it or not they get a disturbing amount of snow).
When I moved to New Mexico 15 years ago, I promised myself that I would never shovel another driveway again (or mow a lawn or rake any leaves), a promise I have for the most part been able to keep.
You forgot the part about the chorus of "Do I HAVE to wear my snowpants today???"
I guess that's one good thing about a bad back and a bad elbow, no shoveling...thank goodness for 4WD.
I'm pretty tired of the snow but the ice is really getting me down.
I think I may need to snowshoe to my EMG tomorrow...can you just take a minute and picture that?
There, I knew I could get you to smile.
Isn't living in the Chicago area wonderful? I am just not looking forward to the ice storm that is supposed to his this afternoon.
this may be a dumb southerner question, but why shovel your walk? why not just walk on top of the snow? especially if there is a layer of treacherous of ice underneath?
i have never understood the concept of shoveling snow. of course, i don't rake leaves either, so maybe it's just another form of my laziness :-)
I am so grateful I moved from the Arctic, um Cleveland, to live in Dallas right now :)
I don't see much snow now that we live in Texas. I did see my fair share when we lived in Chicago. I hope you get that snow blower for Christmas. (:
@ Laura ~ I like your logic.
@ NukeDad ~ Tonight is an ice storm plus 3-10" depending on where you live. Saturday overnight, more significant and early next week too. At least the kids will be out of school.
@ Terri ~ A woman who understands me!!!!!!
@ Rhonda ~ I can handle baking heat. You don't loose power when that happens.
@ Melisa ~ yeah, stock up before the ice hits.
@ Magnolia ~ I saw that, enjoy it.
@ Tom ~ We are so used to it that it takes an 'act of God"~ pun intended~ to close schools.
@ de-l ~ That was a smart move.
@ Big Bad ~ Yup, and the trudging slush pit they carry into the house with them.
@ Melisa ~ You should reschedule or ice skate.
@ I' with ya, this will be miserable.
@ Nonna ~ Many reasons. !. get hard to walk through when deep. 2. Track less into the house. 3. After walked on often it compacts and turns to ice.
@ BusyMom ~ I lived in Cleveland too. This Northern living is for the birds.
@ Cheffie ~ ahhhhh, if Mr. Weasel could find a job in Texas.
I? LOVE THIS!
Frame this and give it to all our friends who live in like Tennessee and get snow once a year and think its quaint.
BAH! (Yes, the impending snow has me a bit crabby - and I don't even do the shoveling!)
I'm a California girl and the idea of snow always seems so romantic--spent one year in Colorado and I loved it! I lived in an area that had some but not too much. I would probably have to jump off of a cliff if I had to deal with what you described here. So sorry!
@ Coleen ~ it always cracks me up how people who don't live with it think it's the 'best thing ever!'. They don't know that after 1 day it is black and nasty sludge.
@ Heidi ~ It's very different when you don't get to much and don't have to trek through it with shopping carts and small children.
I'm not a cold weather person nor am I a fan of snow, however I am putting in a request with the Big Guy for some snow next week when we have no school or big plans. It doesn't feel like "HannaKwanzaamas" is just a few days away. Maybe a few inches of the white fluffy stuff will help....
We are living proof of the damage that ice can do as in Laura's comment. My husband & child spent 5-6 hours in the ER with a "broken(fill in the blank)" arm.
You totally nailed it!
Though, you left out the part about getting to the end of your driveway and your neighbor walks over to say hi, so you look up and realize you have a three inch long stream of snot hanging from your nose.
i do know that dirty snow is yucky. it also seems to look much worse in the city faster than in the country so it looks nicer, longer here.
oh! and if you happened to find a job in TN the cost of living is very cheap
i don't even have to pay for my garbage...at all :)
We're kind of lucky here. We don't get much snow so if we got 5 inches the whole state would just about shut down. I'm looking forward to our first winter weather event--maybe it will be a white Christmas!
ps... I love your profile pic... very cute
I am a native of L.A. I have probably only been in the snow a total of ten times.
Gone years in between seeing it. In fact my children have never seen it.
But I can say that I have been in Buffalo and Toronto during the dead of winter.
Ah yes. spoken like a true mid-westerner. We are a worn out bunch, are we not?
I spent a part of the day moving the snow thrower from the pole barn to the garage. This meant filling it with fuel and firing it up of course. I then worked on getting the generator started, just incase. Lastly I filled a couple of 5gal gas cans. All of this in planning for the storm coming tonight and tomorrow. Good stuff.
I couldn't agree more. Fun to look out of the window by the fireplace, but just wet crap in he log run. I hate cold!
Oh you have soooo been hanging out at my house, haven't you?
Oh, except you forgot about the "curb to curb" plowing that they do that's really about (I measured last year) 3-4 FEET from the curb because you live near a curve and so the mailman leaves you nasty notes about how he won't deliver anymore unless you shovel the ice muck slop that the plow deposited three feet out in front of the mailbox. THAT'S fun.
Snow day for you again today, I assume?
I don't mind the snow either as long as I do not have to go outside at all and play or ride in it!
I. HATE. SNOW.
That's why I live in south Alabama. We get like, 1 inch every 3-5 years. Last year's inch of snow and sleet made me consider moving to Costa Rica or Honduras. My indian name is Dances with Hurricanes. Hubs' indian name? Hates Cold More (and gripes about it every day it's below 60 degrees)
Just for kicks, I checked what our current temperature is in degrees Farenheit... -18. Yes that's minus eighteen. I like that number substantially better that the -28 degrees celcius. But it is beautiful from inside my house with my stir crazy children!
Snow is one of the most loathsome forms of water, ice is the worst (unless it is in a drink of course). Here is the vast frozen wasteland they seem to have never heard of salt, oh how I miss salted roads! I was so spoiled back in IL where within a day or so the roads are clear, here it takes weeks of people driving on them to clear, the plows don't do a whole lot it seems and they use very little salt (they spread sand and such with maybe a few grains of salt, it is a mess). I always tell those who are all excited to see snow that it is vile but they don't believe me, crazy!
My friend who checked your blog out while trying to comprehend why I carried around a laminated picture wherever I went told me I must inform you that alt + 248 = °. You have to use the numbers in the number pad on the right of the keyboard not the top row set of numbers. He still doesn't get the Flat WeaselMomma thing, not sure if he ever will, hehe.
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