Oh, the weather outside was frightful......

What a day!! I woke up this morning to find that the wireless internet access I had come to adore was not working. So even though you had every reason to believe that I had again neglected my blog, I had not. My internet had neglected me. My IT guy (Mark) was not home to fix it for me, so my new laptop sat on the end table in the living room, mocking me all day. I should have been able to open it up and start typing away.....but I couldn't. Well, I guess that's not actually true. I could have typed up all over Microsoft Word, but I think you all may have had trouble reading that. And what's the fun in rambling like this if you can't all join in the fun with me?

So my morning started with that big disappointment that carried me through the whole day. Fortunately, many bright moments in my day helped to dim that sadness. Elijah read me one of the new books he got for Christmas with very minimal help from me. Granted, it takes the better part of 30 minutes for him to get through it, but he's 4! And he's reading! It's such a joy for me to see. This past weekend we sat down and played his new Monopoly Junior game with him and he read all of the "Chance" cards on his own, counted his money and paid everyone what he owed them. He was also very quick to say "Daddy, you owe me $2, please!" when it was his turn to collect. He's no dummy! I also got all of the laundry done, which was no small feat considering how long it had been since I had done it (remember, we've been on Christmas break).

And then.....

Shortly after lunchtime, little flakes started to fall from our skies. And not only that, they were sticking to the ground and accumulating into a blanket of white all over everything that we could see out of our windows. For those of you who do not live near me, you will not understand the magnitude of what happened today. It snowed. In fact, it didn't just snow....it dumped snow on us. The craziest part of the whole thing is that NO ONE knew it was coming! At six o'clock this morning, I heard the weather man tell me that we would have heavy rain today and it would be 42 degrees. Around these parts, any amount of snow shuts down the city. We do not have plows, we do not know how to drive in it and we are simply unprepared. In fairness to us, our snow is very different than the powder that is experienced in other areas of the country. It's wet and there is always ice involved. It's not easy to navigate in and our lack of practice make most of us very dangerous behind the wheel of a car under these circumstances. Had the snow come during the night (like snow is supposed to do, right?!), most people would have stayed home in their cozy houses, drinking hot cocoa and venturing outside for the occasional snowball fight or snowman build. But not today. Today we realized how serious this snow storm was just in time for everyone in the tri-county area to be heading home from work.

Normally this would not have impacted us. Mark takes our city's lightrail to work and we are blessed that our trains run just fine in the snow, ice, sleet....you name it. He would have boarded a train and been home in an hour, like usual.

But not today.....

Today Mark took the car to work. He needed the car today because he had plans to meet up with an old friend from high school who was in town for Christmas. I knew that I had tons of laundry laughing at me from the hamper in our bedroom, so I knew that he could take our (one and only) car with no problem. Except then it snowed!!!! OF ALL DAYS!!!!!

Mark left his office shortly after 4 o'clock this afternoon. He got home at 8:52 pm. I know the exact time because the minute he walked in the door, I sent out a mass text to all of the friends and family who were praying and checking in with me for those four-plus hours. Mark is certainly not alone in this. In fact, the reason for it taking him so long to get home was only indirectly related to the snow. Our car handles the snow just fine. Unfortunately, when thousands upon thousands of people who have no business driving in the snow are forced to drive in the snow at the same time.....it gets ugly, people. There were fender benders on every corner. The overpasses were unpassable and the on-ramps became nothing more than a pile of cars that had once tried to "ramp up" and were sadly only able to "slide down".

(This is going to totally give away what kind of sick sense of humor I have, but the pictures on the news reminded me of the scene at the end of "Wall-E" where all the people have become so huge and their muscles have atrophied so badly that they can't help but slide into a pile up depending on which way the space ship is tilting)

My brother and sister-in-law live up quite a hill and Kevin was unable to get his vehicle up the hill (and he drives an SUV), so had to leave his car on the side of the road (amongst many, many others) and walk the 3.74 miles home. I know the exact number because he texted it to me. Remember, when he had left the house this morning, he hadn't planned on hiking through the snow, so it wasn't like he was wearing the appropriate attire (although, now that I think about it, were you wearing your new coat, Kev? Because it totally would have been appropriate for the occasion!).

So the evening was filled with drama as my friends and family texted away, giving each other updates on the status of our loved ones stuck in the snow. Actually....stuck in the traffic. And now I'm exhausted. I wish there was some good reason for my exhaustion, but I wasn't the one stuck in a car going 5 mph for nearly 5 hours. I also wasn't the one who stopped several times to help push people out of the ditches they had careened into (isn't Mark the greatest guy?). No....I was just the one on the edge of my seat, nervously wondering how far away he was and if everything was okay. I was the one who had to keep the kids occupied, fed and to bed, even though all I wanted to do was watch the news to make sure our car wasn't in one of the pile ups at the bottom of an on-ramp. So, basically.....I'm tired because I am emotionally exhausted. Well, that and the 14 minutes I put in on the Wii Fit today. I know the exact amount of time because it tells me.

So now my rambling will come to an end. There is not tidy little wrap up to this post. It's just an endless stream of my thoughts at the end of a very unusual day. It's time for me to go and sleep, and hopefully when I wake up....things will be back to normal.