I see a pattern here...

This was the story my last winter in Seattle:
Snow leaves mess in Seattle, sets stage for deep freeze

This is the story my first winter in Pittsburgh:
Pittsburgh sees record monthly snowfall - and more is on the way.

old habits in a new place

When we lived in Seattle we would go to various parks throughout the city, usually Sunday afternoons, consistently. I think since we've moved here we've only gone a small number of times.

Today the whole family ventured out... and although the paths were covered in snow, and we ended up mostly walking in the road, it was nice to get out, get some fresh air, and practice something familiar.

digging out...

After a few weeks of settling into a routine post-holiday chaos I started a new job. Two weeks later I started school and ummm... considering how much change we've adjusted to in the last six months... honestly I was exhausted.

I really love my new job, I can't say enough good things about it. I couldn't even compare it to my last job in any way, because in nearly every way the new job is fabulous and the previous one was not at all. But it is a new job and it has it's learning curve.

And school... although I am not exactly fond of the subject, Arithmetic Fundamentals; I am exceptionally fond of my teacher, Mr. O. Mr O has been teaching since before my mom was born. He doesn't have a gigundo wrinkle down the middle of his forehead, no he calls it "his dimple"... I am grateful for this opportunity and experience, and it is wearing me out.

So here I am adjusting to all of that, and still trying to do all the things I did before, being a mom and a wife, having a dog, grocery shopping, laundry, mail, sleeping... and out of nowhere (and I mean NO WHERE)... Western Pennsylvania and the Mid-Atlantic is WALLOPED by the "4th largest snow storm on record in ALL the years that they have been keeping a record of snow storms. No freaking joke... I went to bed on Friday nite (Feb. 5th) with the little shiny flurries beginning to fall, and woke up the next morning with easily a foot of snow outside my front door, which was after the snow had started to stick. Within the next 48 hours Pittsburgh was under a 36" blanket of snow (in some parts). We lost power sometime late Friday nite, until the crazy eyes on our Wii remote controller charger woke me up around 5:30 Sunday morning. We cooked food on the camping stove, and listened to the Pen's game on the radio, then spent Saturday night downstairs so that we could be in front of the fireplace (always a fantastic feature in any home).

It was fun, sort of. Obviously we were overjoyed to have the electricity back on for at least one of the days we were home, there were chores that needing to be done after all. Unfortunately we were also unable to go anywhere, there would be no plowing our street for a few days. Thanks to the large evergreen tree attempting to mate with some wires and a telephone pole at the wrong end of our cul-de-sac.

HFG who had gone for a sleep-over down the street on Friday nite, finally made her way home on Sunday afternoon (that house had not lost power) to happily find no school on Monday. Ultimately I hadn't needed to contact my manger earlier on Sunday to notify her of my inability to leave my house on Monday, since in an unprecedented move work was closed for three days! The city was in total chaos, obviously we weren't the only ones with power out and snow filled streets in the area.

So although I didn't have school or work... I found it hard to resist the urge to hibernate, unless I was out shoveling out a path for the dog.

Several things I've said to describe the experience of being stranded in your own home during severe winter weather include:

• It's like having an avalanche envelop an entire metropolitan area.


• A few times I've experienced disorienting snow blindness.


• Didn't you just shovel five minutes ago?


• Didn't I just shovel five minutes ago?
  
• Oh, is it snowing? I hadn't noticed because it just blends with the rest of the mile high snow piles.

So here we are nearly two weeks into some sort of snow flurry activity (either because it was actually falling from the sky, or the high winds were just blowing it around); and they are predicting measurable snow precipitation for the next week at least.

me + shovel = constant companions.