Thursday, January 29, 2015

Blizzard of 2015

So while this storm failed to live up to the hype in many areas, we were not spared its wrath. It was a blizzard here and it gave us quite the smack down. This storm, however, was not as momumental as the blizzard of 2013.  (Hey look, the girls are still wearing the same snow pants.  That's how we roll around here.)  All in all, the blizzard of 2015, or Juno, dumped about two feet of snow in our yard.

Storms of this nature usually tend to cause me stress because of work and commuting. (Remember Hurricane Sandy?) Luckily, work is currently hovering in the low stress category, due to people, so my inability to appear in the office for two days was without issue. I arrived home Monday night around 6:00 and by that point, we had about an inch or so of fluffy snow blowing around. There was a travel ban (no driving) beginning that night at midnight and it had already been announced that the commuter rail trains would not be running on Tuesday so even if I had been crazy enough to hike the 1.25 miles to the train station with arctic winds blasting snow in my face, my efforts would have led me nowhere.  School for the girls was canceled for Tuesday and then again for Wednesday. This now tacks on two additional days to the end of the school year, which messes up my optimistic vacation planning. What was I thinking? A winter in New England without snow days? Not gonna happen.

Here's what our world looked like Tuesday morning.  The storm was forecasted to last for the entire day and into the night.

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And a few hours later . . .

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The entire morning, Allie was begging us to allow her to play outside in the snow.  "Yeah, well, sweetie, it's a blizzard out there."  I brought them outside for five minutes, which was enough to satisfy their curiosity.  Anna declined the adventure.

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Another round of snow blowing in the afternoon . . .

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Our street was finally plowed out at 5:00 that night, which lead to, you guessed it, more snow blowing.

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The day after . . .

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I'm surprised we still have a mailbox.  Our neighbor's met with an unfortunate snow plowing incident years ago and just hasn't been the same.

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Unfortunately, it was so frigid outside, the girls weren't really able to enjoy all the snow.  With temperatures at 15-20 degrees, no one lasted long.  Anna opted to stay in the second time they ventured out.

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My return to the office this morning was not so pleasant as it involved a commute that took more than two hours.  Forty-five minutes of which was spent just waiting for a train to show up and when it finally pulled into the station, it wasn't even the train I had been waiting for, which was supposedly only 15-25 minutes late. More snow coming tomorrow, just in time for the commute.  Ugh.

7 comments:

Margaret said...

When I see your pictures of snow, all I can think is "How beautiful! How fun!" It's gorgeous and you take wonderful pictures.

But I live in Phoenix. I might feel differently if I had to live with it! ;-)

Christina said...

I see that you mentioned that the snow days will add days to the end of the school year for the girls. Do they not build days into the school calendar up there? I'm in Baltimore and they usually built a few days, 3-5, into the calendar and if they don't use them they get out a few days earlier.

Sarah said...

Margaret - I can tolerate one storm and then I'm done. haha

Christina - I don't know if other schools in the area are the same but ours gives us the last day w/out any snow days. When my dad was teaching, there were snow days built in but that was in a different town.

kdliberty said...

I like how the schools in my county add snow days to the calender. They add 30 minutes to the school day. If I remember right it adds 10 snow days to the calendar. However, I live in the deep south. If we had a snow like you had there would be no school for at least a week.//

Anonymous said...

In my area, they only cancel the buses during snow days. Technically the school is still open so they don't bother adjusting the schedule.

Davida said...

In northwest PA there are no snow days built into the calendar, they just have to go on scheduled days off to make up the days. There have been years when they had to go to school on Martin Luther King's birthday, President's Day, no days off for Easter or spring break, etc. It has to be really bad for school to close here!

Kristin said...

I'm a teacher in central MA and we were out of school for 3 days. I don't mind 6 inches, or even 12. 30 is a bit excessive.