I'm dreaming of a white commute ...

So I guess it was appropriate to wait a day to complain about the snow. Yesterday wasn’t really snow. If it had been colder it would have been called a “dusting.” But because the temps were hovering around freezing it was slush that fell from the skies. Yuck. Today we woke up to 8 cm more of slush that fell from the sky with more to come (another 20 is forecasted).

It’s early for our first snow storm (although as snow storms go this is pretty tame). Although as I wrote that sentence I felt the urge to bonk myself on the side of the head. When I was a kid it was rare to have a Halloween without a least a light dusting of snow on the ground so this isn’t all that early. Last year though we had no snow until mid-January. It was a little surreal.

Yesterday I went out and bought a serious winter coat. I’m tired of shivering at the bus stops in the morning waiting for the bleeping bus to come. So I bought a long down-filled coat. Down-filled coats are anything but flattering (unless you’re rail thin) but darn-it I don’t care. They also aren’t all that cheap, which should be a consideration but as I only really need it for about 3 weeks it’s a big outlay. My new coat is hanging in our front closet unused though because it is still pretty warm out.

Kamryn was thrilled with the snow, all excited to wear her “real” snowpants to school this morning (yesterday she wore rain pants). I do remember these days from when I was a kid. The first snowfall of the year is normally a lot of fun because its almost always wet snow. The perfect kind for snowballs and forts and fun. When its –40 out the snow is too dry to do anything with and kind of sucks. She’ll have a great day at school today.

This year should be a good year for the kids winter wise. They are old enough for me to send them out into the backyard to play for endless hours without me having to be outside to – freezing my buns off. With a little help from Daniel and I, I expect our deck stairs could become a pretty good slalom run. It’s just a matter of mounding some snow for them.

The first winter we lived in the house – so that would be 2000 – 2001 – it snowed so much and melted so little that by January/February you couldn’t see the first floor of the house from the street. Shoveling the driveway was a challenge because there was no where to pile the snow. I actually missed work twice because I could get out of our street. This was a combination of some big storms and a new subdivision where snow clearance wasn’t a priority. We haven’t even come close to that since. That’s a little depression. I’ve never quite outgrown the joy of a snow day and even then our kids get gipped and don’t get those very often. Maybe one a year. Work wise they occasionally encourage us to go home “early” (around 3 pm) if a storm hits midday and the roads look to be getting bad but that’s also pretty rare. The only time in my career (12 years) that we’ve actually shut down was the 1998 ice storm. That wasn’t a safety thing but a power thing I think. They were trying to keep power levels down since the grid was so stressed by down wires etc. I was happy to stay home.

I hope we get some huge snow storms this year. I like a good storm – when I don’t have anywhere to go.