I'm dreaming...

Photo (C) Christina Saull - All Rights Reserved

of when it looks like this outside

(go ahead, hate me)

Five for Friday

1. The snow. If you've been reading my blog, you have seen the insane 55" of snow that we have gotten. I have never seen so much snow in my entire life. We haven't really left our little neighborhood - thank goodness that we have restaurants that are lunch-yummy within walking distance! It seems that the snow has finally subsided, but I think we all have one eye to the sky, as you can never really be sure when the white death will begin falling again!


2. Yesterday's project was digging my car out. When I started, it looked like this: When I finished, it looked like this:

It is about 3/4 of the way dug out, with a nice circumference of no snow around almost all of it. A big shout out to Brad who cleaned off the hood and roof after the second blizzard earlier this week. Of course, I feel like I'm about 98 years old today - very sore from my hour of shoveling!

3. Yesterday, we invited over one of our neighbors, whose husband has been out of town all week and has been stuck indoors like we have been. It was great fun to have some human interaction that wasn't with Brad (no offense honey!). Even better, she is extremely well traveled, so she was great to talk to. She lived in London twice when she was younger and has traveled all over Europe and Asia - I think she even convinced Brad to visit Istanbul! :)

4. One of (few) best things about being snowed in has been all the cooking we've done. I've got another post ready to go later today featuring the homemade pizza we've rocked twice this week.

5. Barbados. Ahhh good ol' Barbados. We will hopefully (knock on wood, cross your fingers and toes!) be boarding a plane to JFK tomorrow evening, hanging out for a few hours at the Days Inn JFK and then heading back to the airport to fly to Barbados. Oh Barbados, how I have missed you!

Day 5 post-big snow; Day 1 of blizzard; Day 6 of not leaving the house

"What day of the week is it?" I honestly can't believe I asked Brad that question this morning. That's what happens when you haven't left your little four block radius around your house in almost a week and haven't ridden in a car since... oh wow, a week! A week ago today, I was at the grocery store, stocking up on provisions for this supposed "winter storm" we were going to have. Well, I'm now a believer, since it has also been blizzarding for the past 24 hours. It has finally stopped doing anything out and Brad is out, once again, digging his car out of the snow. Mine? An absolute lost cause... you can't even tell it's a car, with the exception of a little tiny part of the rear view mirror that's visible.

I'd be surprised if we have work tomorrow, as there has been a lot of blowing and drifting snow and above-ground Metro doesn't like big snow drifts. Fingers crossed for Friday! Fingers even more crossed for our flight outta here Saturday night!!!!

blizzarding

some mega icicle that formed overnight

clean up begins... again

Day 4: no work, lotsa snow

Day 4. No work (again) today because the Metro still isn't running regularly above ground - I now haven't been to my office since Thursday. Have to fight for the Internet connection with Brad, since we are both trying to work from home on one Internet connection. They just brought construction equipment into our parking lot to try and move some of the snow... because we are supposed to get 10 - 20 more inches of the white stuff tonight.

Oh yeah, and our flight to Barbados was already cancelled. Yup, two days in advance. So now we leave Saturday night, spend the night at JFK airport (in a near-by hotel actually) and fly to Barbados on a ridiculously long 5 1/2 hour flight Sunday. At least my toes will be in sand before the week is out.

One last thing? Gary the snowman says hello. I think he's the only one who likes all this snow.

Snow, snow and more snow

I am in absolute disbelief that we are supposed to get another 10 - 20 inches of snow tomorrow night and Wednesday. I also refuse to think about what that means for our 6am flight Thursday morning. But I'm not in enough disbelief to not have sent Brad back to the grocery store tonight to stock up on more provisions just in case (good thing we dug out the car yesterday!). We did not have work today, since both our office's follow the federal government's status for those sorts of things. While this sounds appealing, it's really getting quite boring only leaving the house to go shovel. So we decided to set out this afternoon for lunch at Hard Times Cafe, conveniently located about five blocks away. Of course the sidewalks along the direct route weren't shoveled, so we took the nice city walking path, which was completely snow and ice free (makes me wonder why our street looks like a skating rink, but the stupid walking path is clear...). We had a lovely lunch, and it was SO nice to get out of the house. On the way back, we even stopped to make a snowman and named him Gary.

So, there you have it. I give it about a 50-50 chance that we will have work tomorrow. Most school's are still closed, Metro is still not running above ground and the streets are, well, lousy. Here's to more snow!

our street, still snowed in

Snow? Why yes, we have some of that

Well, I will admit that I was skeptical about this "record snowfall." I was skeptical as it began falling from the sky yesterday. I was skeptical as it fell throughout the night and day today. My skepticism ended when I headed downstairs to shovel today. Yikes. Actual snow accumulation is probably only about 16"-18" by us, certainly not record, but there are some crazy drifts in our parking lot that are literally thigh-high.

Quite frankly, as long as some sort of four-wheel drive vehicle can make it down the main road we live off of to the main road that the airport is on by Thursday morning at about 4:30am, I could really care less about what happens between now and then. Heck, maybe I won't even have to go back to work until after we get back from sunning ourselves in the tropics :)

the view at about 10am this morning

snow is over, beautiful sunset!

lots of digging out to do!

The Big Snow

I admit that last Friday in my Five for Friday, I was skeptical of the snow we were forecasted to get. I was still skeptical when I stopped by the grocery store Friday evening after work to pick up a few things just in case I actually had to cook at home Saturday and Sunday. My skepticism was decreasing only by a bit when the snow started falling around 9pm Friday night. By 3am Saturday morning, when I was awoken to someone snow blowing the sidewalk, I was a believer.

We got a lot of snow this weekend. A lot. 16" at the airport, which is about 0.5 miles from our place. Up to 20" in other places. Crazy snow. As I said to Brad, one of the top five snow's I've seen in my entire life, which isn't saying much since I lived in Florida for seven years.

The worst part was being stuck indoors for three days. Yesterday I finally begged Brad to please walk with me to the awesome chili place about six blocks away. I couldn't take being cooped up in the house any more (not to mention I was getting a little tired of cooking three meals a day!)

The roads are still a mess, such a mess that we probably won't even attempt to drive until we have to go to the airport Thursday morning. I think the real problem is that there is so much snow and just no place to put it. Plus it warms up during the day, melting the snow a little, only to have it refreeze into a sheet of ice at night when the temperatures dip into the 20's.

Regardless, I love snow. Even a lot of it. Even a blizzard-esque lot of it! I love it even more when the federal government is closed, as it was yesterday, giving me a three day weekend. Oh, and a special shout out to Brad, who is bringing me lunch to my office because I don't want to deal with D.C.'s barely shoveled sidewalks. He's the best :)

it begins... errr... continues

kitchen windows with snow stuck between the storm windows and screens

homemade corn chowder for dinner

a beautiful day Sunday morning reveals a heck of a lot of snow!

Brad's car, pre-digging out

car post digging out

(thanks to the awesome neighbors who lent us their shovels!)

a look down the street
my poor car... we figure it will be un-buried by about April

first snow!!

We had our first snow fall here in our nation's capital. Nothing big - maybe 2" max. But it was still really pretty to see. Or I should say it was pretty until I had to go scrape my car this morning in 23 degree weather!! My car door was frozen shut! Luckily, the passenger side opened with a little tugging and I was able to force the door open from the inside. Ahhh... the joys of living up north (even though I never considered Virginia "up north"!!)

This was the view from our living room this morning: