Snowpoc-mageddon-izzard

Snowpocalypse. Snowmageddon. Blizzard of 2011. Whatever you want to call it, Chicagoland is going crazy over this storm. It's rare that Chicago gets this much snow. Northwest Indiana and Southwest Michigan are the areas usually tanked by snow. Chicago, not so much. Except for this year.

Schools have been closed for 2-3 days and that's the first time Chicago public schools have experienced a snow day in 12 years! You would think the world was ending (hence the Armageddon reference) because the news has covered only one thing in the past 3 days. It's not only news but it's "breaking news" even though there hasn't been a single snowflake in well over 24 hours at this point. I'm sure everyone has seen the news and saw all the buried cars on Lakeshore Drive in downtown Chicago. I say... Why on Earth would you be driving on Lakeshore Drive (there are alternate routes) when we all knew this storm was coming?

We experienced snow like this in Germany last year, so it's not my first experience... but it is my first experience with a reaaaally long driveway and pathway to the front door! That equals lots of shoveling. While all the kids were out of school and just about everyone was off work, Ray shoveled himself out of our driveway and drove to work in record time-- even arriving 10 minutes early! Not a single person was there. At all. That's completely unheard of for a company that runs 3 shifts. I will admit that it was fun seeing all the kids playing outside in the snow on their first snowday ever and watching our neighbors dig through their driveways for 3+ hours yesterday. I watched people cross country ski down our street and walk snowblowers and shovels up and down our street to help out neighbors. Like I said, pretty rare ocurrance around these parts. We get snow, but it's a few inches here and there... and then it just sits there for months because it's so darn cold here and never has a chance to melt.

It starts... photo taken around 7:00 a.m. on Wednesday, February 2, 2011.

That's my husband-- all geared up in snow pants, jacket, goggles, gloves, turtle fur, and a hat!

Spying on our neighbor just as he began the big digout.

Sometimes... we're not smart. Why didn't we notice before the crazy blizzard that we had a package at our front door? We never enter our front door because we have an attached garage... so this usually slips our mind. It's never a problem until we have a crazy storm like this! I had the lovely opportunity of scraping ice off the interior of our glass door. Bummer.

That would be our package. In case you're interested... it's this.

Just about done with the digout.

 You know, just our mailbox.

And for kicks... a fun photo of my husband getting his Zumba on. He reads this, but not often. He'll probably notice in say... 2 days. Haha. :)  See that terrible popcorn ceiling and wallpaper? That's our next project to tackle. We had the "popcorn" tested for asbestos and it has none! When everything seems to be working against us lately, at least we don't have to deal with that potential safety hazard. Now that we have the results, we can pay someone attempt to scrape and strip the room down. Which reminds me that I still haven't posted photos of our laundry room. Partly because we won't be putting on a new door until the spring and partly because we still have a whiteboard to buy/hang that will complete the room. Until then, it's still "under construction" but on a temporary hiatus.