Nana stretching to see over the snow!

Nana stretching to see over the snow!

This is turning out to be quite the winter!  We got another two huge snowstorms this week, making this the snowiest winter on record for the area.  Last weekend was the really big one, two to three feet of snow fell on the Mid-Atlantic states on Friday and Saturday.  I measured about 28″ here, which was tough to do since the ruler I used for the last storm is only 24″ long.  The wind also caused a lot of drifting, the snow pushed up against our back door was 40″ deep!  (For comparison, look at this picture of Nana watching the snow versus the one from the December storm! Also, you can click the picture to see more photos from this storm on Picasa.)  Obviously, it took quite a while for us to get dug out from the storm.  We shoveled our sidewalks and cleared off the cars on Sunday, but we couldn’t get anywhere as our parking lot and street had not been plowed yet.  The plows finally arrived Monday afternoon (though they kept getting blocked by people who were trying to drive anyway and getting stuck), and I was able to drive to work on Tuesday.

But winter wasn’t done with us yet.  Tuesday afternoon, the snow started falling again, and it continued through Wednesday, giving us another 1-2 feet of snow.  We dug out again on Thursday, the piles of snow in our yard and along the road growing higher and higher, and were able to get out on Friday.

I’ve lived in the Mid-Atlantic my whole life, and have seen a few large snow storms, but nothing came anywhere close to this!  Two blizzards of this size in one week just doesn’t happen very often.  The unusual severity of the storms was enough to spawn a long list of snow-related puns, such as Snowmageddon, Snowpocalypse, and Snowzilla.  Many things were closed for most or all of the week, and the local government was telling people to stay home.  My company didn’t close, but we were given permission to make up the hours later or work from home.  Since there was nowhere we desperately needed to be, we stayed put.  We had plenty to eat, dad gave us a huge turkey breast back at Christmas, so we turned it into chili, sandwiches, and turkey barley soup.  That one turkey breast literally fed us for a week.  We did miss two women’s basketball games since we couldn’t get to campus, but we got to watch them on TV.  Aside from the time I put in working from home and the hours spent shoveling outside, we mostly just relaxed, read and watched movies, so it was a decent “staycation.”

Next week, things will attempt to return to normal.  Driving will definitely be interesting for a while, since the snow on some roads has been compressed into a solid sheet of ice, lanes randomly shift or disappear, and there are huge piles of snow blocking your view at every intersection.  Hopefully government services like mail delivery and trash/recycling pickup will be able to resume.  Maybe schools will reopen, but there’s no word on that just yet.  One thing’s for sure, I won’t be seeing my lawn for a very long time…