*Yawn!*

Today was the first day since February 5th that the Turkey started school on time. That's 17 days, folks. Seventeen days of leisurely mornings due to snow and ice came to a grinding halt this morning. It was quite a rude awakening getting up at O' God Early Thirty and being in the car by 6:35 a.m. While this night owl turkey is happy the kids are once again getting a full day's worth of educational instruction, it also means getting back into a routine of things like planning ahead, earlier bed times, packing lunches the night before and, best yet, naps. (A big YEE HAW on the naps notion!) Nephew here has the right idea -- yawn!

Is it nap time yet?

Smilage

It's Tuesday. The snow is slowly melting but there is still more on the ground than our normal annual accumulation. I am back at work. The kids go back to school tomorrow but on a shortened schedule. Now there are new worries about killer potholes and flooding caused by the melting. Oh, and rumors of another nor'easter for the end of the month. Heavy sigh. Moving to Florida is sounding better and better.

But on a much Much MUCH more positive note -- and because snow is now a four letter word -- I just have to share this cool group, Improv Everywhere. How awesome that they create smiles among vast groups of people without asking for a dime in return. Just a bunch of peeps with a vast cadre of volunteers dispensing happiness. Neato burrito! I especially liked the Little League mission called "Best Game Ever." The text and still photos are utterly fantastic about describing what happened -- this is seriously cool stuff, people! -- and give a great perspective of how it all went down. It's also on YouTube (but not quite as goose-bump-inducing; you really should click on that link above and read the description; just sayin'):



Totally cool! Those kids and families had a great experience that day all because some people wanted to dispense smiles. Betcha you too experienced some smilage. ;-)

After all that snow a warm smile feels really good.

Keep smiling, turkeys!

snOMG #2

It's Snowmageddon II, also known as snOMG 2 or Snowpocalypse Part Deux. Again. It's our very own real life version of Groundhog Day. "Well, it's [a Snow] Day... again..."

As I did the past few days, I dutifully headed outside this morning with the shovel to try to get ahead of the accumulation. A noisy but welcome snow plow had been working in the neighborhood between 12 and 12:30 a.m. and I was also curious to see what havoc had been wreaked upon our previous shoveling jobs.

 

That there is our street with no new havoc. The plow peeps actually managed to widen the street! Yee haw! There are humongous banks of snow at every corner which will make visibility a wee bit challenging but, hey, it's almost a 2-lane street again. Almost. Mr. Snow Plow also did a fantastic job of not blocking the driveway too much:

 

Those two tracks are my morning shoveling. Not that we're going anywhere in this blizzard, mind you -- no, no, no! -- it's just nice to be a little ahead of the game. We will need to work the shovel muscles again tomorrow and widen the driveway access and locate sidewalks again, but those are only minor inconveniences, not havoc, from Mr. Plow.

But the funniest part of the morning excursion was to my right at the end of the driveway: 

 

See it? See that funny thing that looks like a candy cane in the middle of the picture? Guess what it is? Hmm. You've seen pictures of it before. Give up? Drum roll, please... That's our MAILBOX! :-) Poor Mr. Mailbox!

All told, we are expecting another 10" of snow today, Wednesday. School is canceled until next week and we are hunkered down for yet another day of cooking, reading, playing on the computer, talking with friends, possibly doing a little cleaning, intermittent shoveling and yet more shoveling and digging out tomorrow. It is so totally Groundhog Day.

"I'll give you a winter prediction: It's gonna be cold, it's gonna be grey, and it's gonna last you for the rest of your life." Roger that, Phil. 

Plow tease

At 5:15 pm I heard it. That diesel motor, the vibration under foot, yellow lights flashing, county emblem emblazoned on the side. Yes, friends, it was a snow plow sighting in the neighborhood. Oh, what relief! Freedom was finally on the horizon! Yee haw! I rushed outside and met the neighbors, waving shovels and cheering as the truck headed down the street.

So when the plow dumped a bunch of sand and backed out of the community we were baffled. What? No plowing? Our collective excitement deflated faster than the Hindenburg. Huh? What happened? Why would the plow tease us like that? Turns out that the plow arm on the front was broken (too much snow?) and the driver said he "might be back tomorrow."

Might? Be. Back. Tomorrow? Puh-leeze quit the tease and just plow. Pretty please. With whipped cream on top?

Snowmageddon III

24. That's veinticuatro, vierundzwanzig, twentyfour or XXIV.

24 inches is the official snow total for the pink turkey's abode. Considering we don't usually exceed 15" in an entire winter, 24" in 28 hours is mind boggling. (Back and shoulder boggling if you are the one wielding the shovel!)

We headed out on this bright and sunny day to make more of that 24" vamoose from the driveway and sidewalks.

 

...and then we shoveled a little further in to the street. Still no plow so it may be another day or two before we can go anywhere.  You can see what I mean:

And here's a side street:

 

The lines in the snow are where people have been walking. No trucks, no cars, no plows are making it through there. 

Our house.  I particularly like the "halo" created by the sun. Mr. Sun was a huge help in getting rid of some of the ice today. Thanks, Mr. Sun! I hope you come back tomorrow, too. 

Oh. Remember the mailbox pictures from yesterday? Here's the mailbox post shoveling: 

Somehow I think we may be getting a new mailbox come spring.

We also discovered that our favorite Italian restaurant at the end of the street is actually open today. Hooray! Not that we are wanting for food, but it's always nice to get out and, heck, a pizza during the Super Bowl is always VERY welcome.

Hmm. Wonder if they have wings, too?

Snowmageddon II

FINALLY! The snow finally stopped falling from the sky around 4:30 or so this afternoon. Yippee! I still can't find a yardstick to measure the total accumulation in the yard but, suffice it to say, it's a LOT!

Let's back up a smidge and take a look at the 1:00 pm images:

The snow was still coming down hard. We would shovel for 30 minutes only to turn around and see the ground with a fluffy layer of white stuff covering it again. *Sigh.*

This is the first time we made it to the sidewalk in front of the house. We worked sooo hard to get to this point and I'm bummed that the depth doesn't really show here. Drat! But can you see the mailbox? It's on the right side of the driveway and seriously buried.

 

Remember my neighbor's green truck from earlier? All you can see now is a tiny green sliver just to right of center. I don't think he's going anywhere in that truck any time soon. 

And now...drumroll, please...we present the 5:00 pm pictures: 

The light at the end of the tunnel - litterally! You can actually see where the winter storm ends in the cloud definition. It was teee-frickin-rific to see the sunlight and realize that all the shoveling was actually [finally] working. Yee haw! That is a shovel's-width of sidewalk between our house and the neighbor's. And sunlight might as well be a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow!  

It was hard to tell how deep the snow was in photos, so I took this:

 

That's my waffle weave sweater and sweatpants. The snow is well over my knees and heading up to mid-thigh. Yowser! 

I referenced the mailbox a couple times today and now I was finally close enough to get a good shot of it. Again - yowser! That's a LOT of snow! 

When I finally got near the end of the driveway I was able to get a glimpse up the street. A truck was stuck (see the headlights?) and a neighbor was walking in the middle of the street. You can kinda get an idea of how much snow we had by the cars in the street. (Yes, those are cars!)  We still haven't seen a snow plow, but hopefully they will visit tomorrow. Hopefully. 

The front of our house with snow in piles and piles and piles! 

Whew! I finished shoveling the driveway, took pictures and then quickly slumped back in to the house. I. Am. Tired. Shoveling is hard work! I know there will be more tomorrow as soon as the street gets plowed so I'm counting on some good sleep tonight. (Hear that, sheep? COUNTING on a good night's sleep? Ha ha.)

Snowmageddon 2010

Is it Snowmageddon or Snowpocalypse? Do I really care? Um. No. I just know that we are in the middle of a historic snow storm here in the DC Metro area. The largest snow fall on record was 28" in 1922 and we are well on our way to burying that in a new snow drift. Seriously. The forecasters this morning are even upping the initial thoughts on our totals, now calling for 24"-30" before this is all over. Waaaaa! I can't even imagine what that will look like, much less how "fun" (*cough!*) it will be to shovel.

To give you an idea of what's on the ground after last night, here are the morning photos:

That's our mailbox on the far left, and our neighbor's green truck is barely visible in the middle of the picture.

 

Another shot of the mailbox, this time towards the right. (Somehow I don't think USPS will be delivering today.) 

The pink turkey herself modeling Winter 2010 Haute Shovel Wear. Don't you know Stacy and Clinton are seriously jealous! Hee hee :-) 

The front porch pre- snow removal. Yes, it is February and that is a Christmas wreath on my front door. It looks good with the fresh dusting of snow, dontcha think?

There was somewhat of a path to the front door by 9:00 am. 

Then it was the Turkey's turn with the shovel. We got about 1/3 of the driveway dug out before calling it quits for a while. This is heavy, wet snow and NOT easy to move. And it's still coming down in droves. Sigh.

And once it's out of the driveway it's in a huge pile. Somehow I know that pile will be getter bigger and bigger throughout the day. Sigh. And another sigh.

I am planning to get back out at 11:00 am for another turn with the shovel. It's daunting to know that the earlier shovel work is already buried, but what the heck. Better now than trying to do it all later, right? (That one gets an *audible sigh.*) It is going to be a looooong day. Come back and check out our progress throughout the day. Blog updates will be posted between shoveling and baking and watching movies and anything else we can do inside, so stay tuned for more updates from Snowmageddon Central. 

Oh, and feel free to come over and take a turn with the shovel. :-)