Finally!

For the first time since moving to Minnesota, we have gotten hit by a big winter storm.  I know that we have only been up here for just over a year, but when we did move we anticipated having snow during the winter.  And not just a few inches here and there, we were expecting it to snow and stay for the winter months.  Not only did we expect it, but we hoped for it. 

Living down in Kansas for six years, we had to deal with not have much of a winter.  The most snow accumulation we ever saw was between six to eight inches.  Not much to shake a stick at.  And it didn't stay around for very long.  We only had one white Christmas, and it was the best one of all because of the snow.  It makes everything just seem so festive.  Besides being so far away from home and tucked into the Republican strong hold that is the midwest, not having snow at winter time was the worst part about living in Kansas.  Well, that and the insanely hot summers. 

When we moved, we did not anticipate to have the kinds of winters that we grew up with.  Growing up on the door step of Lake Superior you get use to three or four feet of snow in the winter.  Lake effect snow makes for long winters and by the time March or April rolls around, you start to get a little sick of it.  Mainly because by that time all the nice white snow is gone and all that you are left with is the nasty gray snow that consists mostly of dirt and salt from the roads.  So we lowered our standards on winters and hoped for maybe a foot or two of snow, that's not too much to ask for is it?  Last year we were disappointed by the lack of snow.  I chalked it up to Mother Nature playing a prank on us.  Something along the lines of 'You think you can move north and get a winter?!  I'll show you.  BAM!  Warm winter months.  Suckers.'  She's a bitch like that. 

The weather is fickle and you cannot control it.  You can only prepare for it and react to it.  The reaction we had yesterday was that we didn't leave the house and kept the blinds open to watch the snow fall.  And did it ever.  I woke up around 8:30 (sleeping in for me) and it didn't stop for about twelve hours.  It's tough to say how much fell, but I believe the general consensus is in the range of ten to fourteen inches throughout the Twin Cities.  Now if that isn't reason enough to stay indoors and wait for everything to be cleared out, I don't know what is.  That is how we reacted to it, staying inside.  There were over three hundred car accidents as a result of the weather.  Yesterday was one of those days where if you didn't need to be outside, it was best to stay inside.  I prepared for the weather this weekend by making plans not to leave the house.  I picked up a few things from work before leaving Friday afternoon knowing that the weather was going to get bad.  The reason I did was because I didn't want to go out in it.