It has been horribly cold this winter. I’m afraid some of my fantastic little shrubs in the front yard won’t make it, actually. If the high has been in the 50s this month, we consider it a warm day.
Throughout each cold spell I would complain to Steven: “If it’s going to be so cold, then where’s the snow? How can we have so many days where we don’t even get above freezing and yet not have any snow to show for it?!”
Today was the beginning of yet another cold spell. This time, the snow was lurking about, but not for us. Auburn and Montgomery were the targets today. Flurries for us, but that’s better than what we had been getting.
Steven went off to work this morning after a quick stop at the dentist. The kids did their normal thing in the morning while I kept a weather eye on the horizon for our predicted flurries. By mid-morning the flurries arrived. Lydia, who has seen Frozen twice now, went into hysterics. Soon she had me and Sam out in the flurries. “Let’s build snowmen!” she screeched.
And it snowed.
Lydia ran around like a girl on fire while Sam tentatively played with the snow. Since we live in Alabama, the kids don’t have decent gloves, and Sam was not a fan of his hands being cold. After he accidentally got a snowball to the face, he was DONE, and we went inside soon after.
And it snowed.
By then, I was noticing how easily and quickly the snow was sticking to the roads and sidewalks. Our driveway was covered in 30 minutes. At lunch, the weather quickly deteriorated and we were slapped with a Winter Storm Warning and a Civil Emergency Message. The schools tried to close but it was too late — buses couldn’t get out, parents couldn’t get to their kids, and everyone was getting stuck on the roads. Steven was stuck at work and I knew he would be there overnight.
And it snowed.
After scrounging up two mismatching mittens of Lydia’s for Sam’s poor hands, we attempted to make the best of things and enjoy the snow. With his rocking pink gloves, Sam enjoyed the snow more this time around. We made a feeble attempt at a snowman, but the snow was just too powdery — it reminded me of Winter Storm ’93.
By the time the snow stopped, we had not quite two inches, with every bit of that sticking to the roads, driveways, sidewalks, rooftops — just everywhere. Though Steven was safely at work the whole time, I know of many other friends and relatives that got stuck on the roads for a while.
So here I sit. The kids are finally in bed and I am sans Steven. It will be a lonely night tonight. What a nutty day. The temperature is 20 degrees and falling outside, there’s two inches of snow all around me, and Steven is stuck in Homewood.