Welcome to my Nightmare

Alright, so it's not that bad. What's 2 feet of snow among friends?

Sorry, but there's so much snow we can't open the storm door, so all photos today are from inside (where it's also warm).

This is the view from the office this afternoon.

And this is what I see out the kitchen window.

And this is the view from the quilt studio.

There's about 19" on the ground when this one was taken.

Now there's about 24, and HALLELUJAH! The snow has finally stopped.

If we are seriously lucky, we'll get a plow through the neighborhod sometime tomorrow. Right now there is 4 feet of snow at the bottom of the driveway that DH thinks the plow may take out. Sadly, he's always been away for our rare snowstorms, so he's got a lot to learn....like when the plow comes that nice little 4 foot pile of snow will double in width and be twice has hard to move.

Oh well, it will provide him a source of entertainent (not to mention exercise).

We don't see a lot of snow in Washington, DC, and as you've undoubtedly heard, we fall apart when we get the tiniest bit. Schools shut down at the first flakes, people storm the grocery stores if they hear there's snow within 200 miles of us.

Imagine what we're like when we get 2 feet of snow, and we know we're going to get it 24 hours in advance.

I merchandised in 3 grocery stores yesterday. Starting at 9:30, it was impossible to find a parking space. Customers were waiting outside for carts, and the lines to check out snaked into the aisles. I heard someone say if you thought that was bad, you should go to the mall.

Well, I did, because I had to merchandise there as well. That was nothing. In fact, all the stores that had special sales starting at 3:00, put the signs out and started the sales in the morning because they knew they weren't going to compete with the Safeway when work got out.

At 4:00 in the Safeway people were parking on the curb or circling the lot waiting for spaces.  They were following people to their cars to get their carts, and inside...well, let's just say that you definitely didn't want to buy ice cream. Checkout time was 30 minutes to an hour. Every cash register open, every line down the aisles to the back of the store. You would think we were preparing for nuclear attack.

Once I was out of there I briefly thought about the wine store and came to my senses. I had one bottle of red at home, I could always crack open the emergency bottle on display with the Tuscan tree, and I did buy an extra jar of olives, so I could just suck it up and drink martinis, if need be. (And if we ran out of Vodka, I'd switch to Margaritas--yes, I bought limes.)

Woke at 7:30 to a good 6" of the white stuff and blizzard-like conditions. Had to slip on the boots, put the coat on over the jammies and shovel a trail around the back yard for the dogs, before I could even turn on the coffeepot. That will be the extent of my shoveling this storm, since the hubs is home. By the time I did that (less than 5 minutes), it seemed that another inch of snow had covered the freshly swept back steps. Good thing I bought a broom yesterday when I was out.

Anyhow, housebound isn't all that bad when you've got things to do. We've had a fire blazing, all the trees are lit, so it's festive and cozy. Made a crockpot of stew this morning with some nice hot crusty bread (yesterday's purchase at the grocery store) for dinner, and spent the afternoon prepping the quilty projects.

Got the back made for a gift quilt (far right) and pinned all three. Tomorrow I'll get the gift quilt stitched and bound, and possibly the table quilt (center). The convergence quilt on the left is something I'm totally in love with, so I'm not going to rush that, but I did want it off the pinning table.

Then I've got to work on another gift (not a quilt, but a sewing project), which I hope to knock out on Tuesday. I've got to work half day Wednesday and Thursday (plus some merchandising....if they ever plow us out of here), so SIL's quilt is most likely going to be finished after the holidays and mailed late. But I did show it to her last weekend when she was here, so she knows about it (and is excited), so the pressure is off on that one.

In the meantime....2 feet of snow or not....hope springs eternal....