Snow And The South

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I've lived in WNC for nearly 12 years after living in the Land of Snow and Ice (aka Michigan) for my whole life. And it still boggles my mind how people act when there is just snow in the forecast!

I do admit that when it start snowing, I stay off the roads. Last year, we got snowed in for several days because there are simply not enough plows / salt trucks to clear all the roads in a quick fashion. A little bit of snow can shut things down.

But it's not suppose to start snowing until this afternoon at the earliest. Last forecast I saw had it starting at 8 pm tonight. Right now, it's cloudy and grey, but nothing falling from the sky.

Yesterday, I went to Walmart. My main goal was to pick up a prescription, but the line for the pharmacy was super long and I knew that I wouldn't make it to the front in time because I had to be home before Emily got home from school.

So I ended up just buying bread and milk. It was stuff I needed but it was funny because when there is snow a-coming, people in the South stock up on bread and milk.

The parking lot at Walmart was crazy. People seemed to have forgotten normal parking lot behavior. I ended up pulling forward into a spot and I thought a lady was going to shank me because she had wanted that spot.

Trying to get out was just as tricky. People were going way too fast and not paying attention to where they were going. It was just crazy and that was yesterday - at least 24 hours before it was even maybe suppose to snow.

For everyone in the South who might get hit by frozen water coming out of the sky, remember be calm. Snow can't hurt you but slamming your car into someone in a parking lot might!

Longing for Spring

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Winter, by far, is my least favorite season. The cold really jacks up my pain levels and I hate being cold. The weather this year can't make up its mind, which gets really annoying. We had massive rain / wind storms last week and a few days later it was snowing.

So I'm longing for spring. Warmer weather, no snow and hopefully not so much with the yo-yoing temperatures. Plus getting winter done puts me one more season towards fall.

Hopefully with March coming in a couple days will also bring consistently warmer weather. I do live in the South and our winters tend to be shorter than up north. My birthday is at the end of March and it wasn't uncommon for it to snow on my birthday when I lived in Michigan.

I know Emily will be happy to be able to play outside with her friends more and hopefully I can start walking around the neighborhood again.

Are you looking forward to Spring?

No Mo Snow

I don't like winter or snow. Growing up in the Land of Snow (ie Michigan), I've had my fill of it to last a lifetime. Thankfully winter is generally a lot shorter in NC than MI, but we generally get a snowstorm or two.

A lot of times, the weather will call for a storm but it will fall apart over the mountains. We were forecasted to have a major storm late last week, so there was a run on milk and bread. Because apparently in the South you need milk and bread to outlast a snow storm.

It started overnight on Thursday and then it snowed all day on Friday. The storms rolling in made me miserable. The pressure changes with a snow storm used to not make my pain levels as high as with a thunderstorm or just rain. But the last few years, it's reversed so I was in a lot of pain.

It didn't snow on Saturday but we had high winds so all the snow kept drifting around. Sunday the sun finally came out and yesterday it was close to 50 degrees out.

Despite the warmer weather, there is still a lot of snow. I had to go out to the post office to mail out a package yesterday. The secondary roads and even the main road that runs from Hendersonville to Asheville was still partly covered. I think for the secondary roads, DOT is just planning on waiting for it to melt which is annoying.

The other annoying thing is that I we haven't gotten mail since Thursday. I can understand no mail on Friday and Saturday but there was no reason they couldn't deliver yesterday. 

Emily is off from school for the 3rd day and we are all going a little stir crazy. I'm hoping that Emily will be back at school tomorrow and that the roads will be clearer. And no more snow for the rest of the season would be great too!!

Snow, Ice and Near Death

We got a massive ice storm here yesterday. Lots and lots of accidents shown on the news station's Facebook page. Todd was at work last night, though he knows how to drive on slick roads. Even with it only being a mile away in an SUV with brand new tires, it took him a half hour to get home.

All of this took me back to a time when I was a complete dumb ass about snow and ice, and nearly got myself killed.

Todd and I were living in Bay City, Michigan at the time. It was a Sunday and I had spent the day in Mount Pleasant watching the Daytona 500 with a friend. Todd had called me and told me that the snow was starting and I should get going. But I dawdled and left much later than I should have.

At the time, I was driving my VW New Bug. I had bought the car in the springtime and didn't take into account that it was super low to the ground and therefore not ideal for traveling in the snow.

I took it slow and the trip from Mount Pleasant, which normally only takes about an hour, took forever. Even going slow, I was sliding a lot. I was on the highway and just at my exit when I slid into a snowbank just off the road.

I started doing the go forward, go backward thing to unstick myself. I had been doing this for a few minutes when I looked in my rear view mirror. There was a semi bearing down on me, and I knew the driver wasn't in total control of his rig.

Just at that moment, I got unstuck and I gunned it a little to get out of the semi's path. I knew in my heart that if he had hit me, I would have been dead. The rest of the drive home, I sobbed my eyes out. I have never been so scared in my life.

Todd comforted me when I got home, but in typical Todd fashion he also told me that I should have listened to him. I agreed - I had been totally dumb for not listening to him and leaving sooner before the roads got so bad.

Since moving to NC nearly 10 years, I haven't had much chance to drive on icy roads. We don't get a lot of snow and when we do, things shut down. I usually just stay inside, especially since I started working from home.

Today I'm glad to be inside and not on the icy roads. I wouldn't want to have a repeat of that scary night all those years ago.

The School Closing Conundrum

The part of Michigan that I grew up in, we rarely had snow days. I lived about five miles from Lake Michigan so we got a lovely thing called lake effect snow. The weather would have to be super bad for school to close.

Now I live in western NC and things are different here. Now I do realized that they don't have the amount of equipment that they do in Michigan, but sometimes the school closings seem a little bit of an overreaction. 

Emily is in her last year of going to school at our church. They follow the county next to us' school closings usually. Early this week, there was some icy roads in the mountains and parents took to Facebook to complain bitterly how the school system had put their kids in danger. 

This morning I wake up and Facebook lets me know there are school closings. I went and checked and the county schools were on there. 

Now it didn't snow here last night. It's windy and cold but that's not a reason, in my opinion, to close school. I honestly think that the school system didn't want to piss off anymore parents and just decided to close for today. Especially since it is Friday.

Thankfully, Emily's school decided not to close. It's PJ day in her class today and she was really looking forward to it. Todd bundled her up with her stuffy and blanket to have a fun day at school.

We are in the mountains so I do understand that it can be a conundrum. There can nothing where I live in the foothills but in the higher elevations there can be some ice and snow. It just seems so odd and almost silly to me, a Michigan girl, to look outside, see nothing on the ground or road, and have the possibility of no school for Emily.

The Snow Rule

I may be a bit weird, but I make up little rules for myself. Usually to motivate myself into doing something. But the snow rule is different.

I don't remember when I came up with the snow rule, but it's been in effect for me for many years. The rule is simple - if it snows before Thanksgiving, I must watch a Christmas show.

Since moving to NC, I have not be subject to the Christmas rule. We don't get a ton of snow and usually any snow comes in January. But when I looked out my window this morning, the ground was white.

I'm not thrilled at snow so early in the year. But I will follow the snow rule and watch a Christmas show. Todd says we should watch Barney Christmas on Netflix, but that is not happening.

The Longest Winter Ever

I've lived through some long winters thanks to growing up in Michigan, but usually the winters are much shorter and more mild in North Carolina. Not this year though.

Thanks to the polar vortexes, we have gotten tons of snow. The last time we got this much snow was in January 2011, but that was one storm. We had a normal winter after that.

I love snow for Christmas but I hate snow after, especially in March. The up and down with the weather has caused my pain levels to be much worse than normal. In the 60's one day and then below freezing and snowing the next doesn't help at all.

Yesterday I had been resting in the bedroom after work because of high pain levels. I went out into the living room and nearly started swearing. The grass was covered by snow... again.

It's nearly April and I'm praying that Spring will actually come soon. I have a picnic that I'm invited to in May and my husband keeps joking how there will be snow for the picnic. I really hope he's wrong but who knows at this point!

Snow Day!

Often there will be a lot of hysteria around here when snow is in the forecast. But we've gotten a lot of snow this winter so we knew to hunker down when nearly a foot of snow as called for earlier this week. We didn't get a foot but we got enough that both Emily and Todd had two snow days.

Emily loves the snow, in part because she really hasn't gotten to play in it before. In years past, we'd get some snow but it wouldn't be a lot and it would usually melt the next day. But we got a bunch so a few days ago, I braved the cold to take her out to play.

The first thing she wanted to do was build a snowman, thanks in part to her love of Frozen. The snow was perfect packing snow so we quickly built a snowman. Then Emily decided that her snowman needed a friend so we built another snowman.

After that, she wanted to have a snowball fight. She would pick up big chunks of snow but thankfully her aim was poor and didn't actually hit me. I hit her a few times but my aim was better so I mostly got her in the

back with small snowballs.

We played a little more but I was getting cold and getting a migraine. So we took our bowl that we had brought out to get some snow to make snow ice cream. 

Once we were inside, we took off our wet clothes. Emily was really excited to help me make the snow ice cream. I added too much vanilla so it tasted weird to me. But Emily loved it and that's what matters. We had extra snow in the bowl so Todd tried to make some. His was better but I'm not a huge fan of snow ice cream. But it was fun to make with Emily.

Even though the cold gave me a huge migraine, it was worth it to see Emily's big smiles!

Southern SnowApocalypse of 2014

Snow is something I’m very familiar with. I grew up in Holland, Michigan which is right off the coast of Lake Michigan. Every winter we would get dumped on, snow-wise, because of the lake effect. It wasn’t odd to not see grass from November until March. I dislike snow a lot and was happy when we moved down to NC. We still get winter but it’s usually much milder and not as long.

Not this year though. Thanks to the polar vortexes we’ve gotten a ton of snow and zero degree temperatures. A couple of days ago, Atlanta was gridlocked because of the snow. We got a couple of inches here. My husband is great driver in snow but when he left for work on Tuesday, he didn’t get very far before he decided the roads were too bad and came home.

We have a unique perspective because of growing up in Michigan. Things are different down here because they just aren’t prepared for snow. Todd said the roads were so bad because the plow trucks weren’t plowing they were just salting. So it made it very dangerous.

I saw tons of posts on Facebook and Twitter of friends stranded, running out of gas and having to walk home. It’s crazy to think a few inches of snow could cause so much chaos but living down here we just don’t have as many winter resources down here.

Emily didn’t have school for three days because of the snow and cold this week. While I wish she could go to school I do feel better safe than sorry. A bus overturned not far from here on Tuesday when it was snowing so much. There were just minor injuries but it was very scary to even think about all those kids on that bus.

It’s supposed to be 40 today so the snow will be melting, ending the SnowApocalypse of 2014. Hopefully this will be the last of the horrible winter weather down here but I’m not holding my breath.

The Heat Debacle

I hate being cold. It’s one of the big reasons why winter is my least favorite season. It’s been very, very cold this winter which is unusual for NC. Several people on Facebook have mentioned that it’s been hard to heat their houses with the bitter cold and it reminded me of the time that our heat got turned off in the dead of winter.

The first year that Todd and I lived together we opted to go to our separate parents’ houses for Christmas. It was an odd year since my mom hadn’t been dead for very long. My dad, sister and I tried to do some of our old traditions but it just felt weird.

I didn’t stay very long at my dad’s house and I was the first one back to our apartment. Todd had been the last to leave and he turned OFF the heat. This was in December in Michigan! Needless to say it was literally freezing in our apartment.

After cranking the heat up, I got under my electric blanket. I love electric blankets because I’m always cold. This one had been a gift from my grandpa from a few years earlier and I was super thankful to have it. I just played on my DS under the blanket while it took several hours for my apartment to warm up.

Todd apologized when I called to tell him, though he also found it very funny. From then on, we never turn our heat off when we leave. In part because of this incident but also because we don’t want to come home to cat-icles. 

Perks of Working From Home

I work from home doing tech support. Even though I sit in my home office, usually in pjs, it’s very similar to the other call center jobs that I’ve worked. I have co-workers that I talk to over a chat program and I have a set schedule.

My boss is very flexible about moving my schedule around if need be. If I get sick during the week, I just work on my day off. If I want the weekend off, I work longer hours during the week. Yesterday was Emily’s preschool Sharing Feast and I got to work a shorter shift to attend.

It was so cute to see her with her friends during the short program beforehand. And we got to eat lunch with some of her friends and their parents, which was nice as well. If I was working another job, it would be harder to take off without using vacation time.

There are some downsides from working from home. But as I watch it snow outside my window, I’m glad that I don’t have a commute and that I can be there for Emily’s school programs. 

Snow - Why I Love it and Hate It

Our front yard a few years ago

When I was growing up, snow was the norm for nearly six months. We lived about ten miles from Lake Michigan so we would get lake effect snow. Most years our yard would be white from November until March. I was very happy when I moved down south where the winters are much shorter.

But I have mixed feelings about snow. Before December 25, I love it because it never feels quite like Christmas without a little snow. After Christmas is over, I hate snow because then it becomes cold and annoying.

Snow is in the forecast for tomorrow and I hope we get some. Though this is very early for snow to come down here in North Carolina and I hope it’s not a sign of things to come. Luckily I do work from home so most of the time I can watch the snow without having to go out in it.

Emily always gets excited for snow because she really wants to play in it. The one year we went up to Michigan for Christmas there was no snow on the ground and didn’t really start snowing until we were driving home.

So snow is welcome for now but hopefully winter won’t last too long past Christmas.

My Feelings On Snow

As winter approaches, so does the colder weather with the threat of snow. We actually have snow in the forecast for tonight and I’m feeling a little conflicted about it.

Mostly because I hate snow with a passion, except between Thanksgiving and Christmas when I love snow. I grew up in Michigan and I lived very close to Lake Michigan. Because of the lake, we would get tons of snow every year because of the lake effect. Snow would start usually in late October / early November and wouldn’t let up until late February / early March. Usually once the snow came, you wouldn’t see the grass again until spring.

Snow in December made it feel Christmas-y but once it was December 26, I was already sick of it. I was never fond of the cold when I was a child and the best part about playing in the snow was the hot chocolate afterwards. As I grew up, my hatred of snow outside of Christmas increased as it just became a pain.

I was extremely happy to move down South were snow doesn’t happen very often. Most of the eight years we’ve lived her, we haven’t gotten more than a dusting or two. Of course, that means mostly green Christmases, which is a little sad but I can deal with it.

They do freak out down here over the threat of snow. Schools have been canceled in the past because a snow storm was in the forecast – most of the time it never actually snows. And everyone goes to the store to stock up on bread and milk when snow is in the forecast.

We’ll see what happens tonight. I’ve been feeling festive already so a little snow would be nice since we don’t get a lot down here. Plus I work from home now so I don’t have to go out in the cold unless I choose to!