Musings of a marginally sane feline-appreciating female.

Around 11:30 last night, the snow finally stopped.  All in all, I’d say we got in the neighborhood of 30 inches.

Between my brother and myself, we were out there 13 times over the course of 35 hours.  Thank god for my neighbor with the snowblower who gave us a big boost by coming by yesterday morning.  When it stopped last night, I went out and shoveled one last time, put down the ice melt, and came inside and basked in the glory of defeating the storm.  (OK, I didn’t do it alone, but let me have my Wonder Woman moment.  I mean, if we’re going to count who was outside more…but we won’t…but it was me.)  I kind of feel like the ultimate grown up.

I suspect the plow driver that saw me out there last night either thought I was really on top of things, or I’d lost my mind.  (It could be a little of both.)

I aggressively slept in this morning because our sidewalks were already clear!!

My neighbor with the snowblower came by again this morning and took out the snow mountain at the end of the driveway deposited by the plows.  I’ve already taken over gingerbread – I think I need to send over a side of beef or something.  I promise, if I ever buy a big snowblower, I will clear everything I can see just like he does.

Our street looks great – that is part great work by VDOT and part accident of location.  We live on a circle and one of the snow emergency routes dead ends into it.  The plows have to go around the circle because they’re too big to do a U-turn at the end of the snow route.  Works for me.  There are primary routes that probably don’t look as good as our street – happens every time.

The snow was light enough that it didn’t bring down trees into power lines.  (However, as things melt and the snow gets heavier, it could be an issue.)  But the power held beautifully all over the county.

We’re getting lots of closing announcements for tomorrow – and I think that is just plain smart.  Give the trucks the time to really clear the roads.  Give people the time to actually relax after getting dug out.  Keep people off the damn roads.

If you’re a non-essential business and you’re open today?  I am very disappointed in you.

We’re not completely done, but what is left it trivial at best and impacts no one but us.  The most important is keeping a bathroom area open for the dog in the backyard.  (Easy since there is no more snow falling!!)  The cars need to be cleared, but we’re not going anywhere anytime soon.  The front porch is covered in drifted snow, but it’s concrete and honestly – no one comes to the front door anyway.

If we can’t get a path cut to the mailbox for our awesome mail-lady, I’ll just put the mail on hold til that is done.

One more quick pass over the sidewalks and another bit of ice melt before dark.

The critters have all been great blizzard buddies.  Moxley has persevered like a champ.  Lily has been plastered by my side in bed every night – and has not run and hid when the plows have come by.  (They are scary.)  Carmen?  Carmen has just had this look on her face of, “This is why we live in here and not out there.”

More than anything, I’m just glad the damn snow stopped.

And hope that the storm takes a hard turn south.  (Sorry Richmond.)  We’ve gone from talking about “maybe a blizzard” to blizzard watch to blizzard warning.  They’re currently saying 33 hours of continuous snow starting around 5 tomorrow.  Oh joy.

We have enough food for a small army, including my brother’s contribution of Entenmann’s mini donuts.  (Seems the Cheese Filled Crumb Coffee Cake wasn’t enough…)  Basically we’re gonna gain 10 pounds each this weekend.

I had to run to the market to get more tomato sauce for chili.  There was a woman there with four young boys who were SO FREAKIN’ EXCITED ABOUT THE BLIZZARD.  Godspeed, sister – you’re going to have a very long weekend.

We have a gas hot water heater, so if the power goes out, we can run warm water in the taps so the pipes don’t freeze.  The rest of the power outage plan is to take all the patio cushions and pile them up on the floor of the laundry room and add all the blankets and have a campout.  Or camp-in, I guess.  (The last big storms we had, the power held – I hope that trend continues.)

My new boots arrived, and they are awesome.  (And that’s another post all on it’s own.)

All the electronics are charged or charging now.  Laptop, Kindle, iPad, iPod, phone, supplementary charger, solar lantern, and Coleman lantern are good to go.

I don’t even know how we’re going to keep up with the shoveling – it’s going to be too much to wait until it’s all done, but we’re going to have to sleep at some point.  (This is where I miss having a townhouse.  Only 10 feet of sidewalk to shovel.)

The dog is going to be so miserable.  The last time we had this much snow I had to clear a path all the way out to the leyland cypresses – they have enough of an overhang to have clear space underneath so he can go to the bathroom.  The downside is that it’s a good 30 feet from the door to the these trees.  I’m thinking more just “stomp out a path” rather than actually try to shovel it.

Even the LilyMonster can tell I’m not happy about this.  When I went to bed last night I said, “Lily, come and cuddle!”  She does not cuddle when I go to bed, I suspect because I move around too much.  Last night?  I had a sweet, purring, cuddle monster for a couple hours.

I just don’t want this much snow.  We can’t handle it, it takes way too long to get things back to anything resembling “functional” and it upsets the dog.