Winter Weather Advisory - Yeah, Right

Well, we had a winter weather advisory, but we wound up getting about 2 feet of very heavy snow. The tree outside our terrace fell...although I will miss our tree, its shade, its birdies, and the privacy it provides, I'm just glad it fell away from us and not on us. Here is our fire escape.

I was very concerned about the roof collapsing from all the heavy snow, but it didn't. I did hear that a roof on another condo complex did collapse, however. I hope it's not true.

Here is our shower. We had no electricity, no heat, and no hot water. We did have a trickle of freezing cold water, for which I was very grateful as many people had no water and had to melt the snow. I heated water on the stove and we used a cup to pour the water over us like a shower. It worked, but boy oh boy was it cold once we were wet!!!!!

This is why we had our trickle of water....Our water pumps are electric, so a water company came to fill up their trucks with water from a fire hydrant and deliver the water to our water tank. They worked all through the night and most of the day to do this.

When the snow finally stopped on Saturday, it was time to play, "Let's Find the Car"!

Then we drove around looking to see what the damage was like and found many more broken and fallen trees.

We had a crank radio, which is one of the best presents we ever got from my Mom, which we used to keep contact with the outside world (well, and our cell phones still worked).

Except for some difficulty with the adjustment for my son who intermittently banged his head repeatedly against the floor or wall because nothing happened when he tried to turn things on, the kids had lots of fun. We blew up some gloves into balloons, the kids helped crank the radio, we sang, we read books, and the kids ran around with lanterns in the dark.

It was so cold in our apartment that it was difficult to sleep. We put the kids in a lot of layers and bundled them under deep comforters. I think we did okay.

I'm glad it's over, though. Being in the dark and cold is really not pleasant, and having to use cold water all the time just makes the chill even deeper. We shivered ourselves to sleep at night, and I kept thinking about "The Long Winter" by Laura Ingalls Wilder and was glad that we didn't wake up with snow piled on us, we were cranking a radio and not a grinder to make bread, their only food, and that it was only four days and not seven months. I was grateful that it was winter and we could put our food on the terrace so it didn't spoil, if we did lose water there would be snow to melt, and we could keep putting more clothing and blankets on where as if it were hot, you can only take off a certain amount of clothes before there's nothing left to do. I was also glad that we had a home and weren't outside and homeless.

So, I'm really looking forward to Spring in a big way, and am grateful that we made it through all home together safe and sound even if a little cold and tired for just a little while.