Snow day, part deux

28.5 inches of snow fell on us this weekend. It was actually pretty nice, except for the being trapped in the house. All of the city buildings were closed all weekends, so we were both home all weekend, a very rare occurrence around these parts. It was really a nice, relaxing day. We don't have many of those both parents around, nothing to do kind of days. B took K out to play in the snow, we all had hot chocolate and we watched way too many Disney princess movies. And thankfully, by Sunday the roads were clear enough for us to get out of the house so nobody was driven to Disney princess-induced psychosis (All Cinderella and no play makes Jack a dull boy?).

The benefit of the last gigantic storm is that we know the drill now. The main roads are clear and residential roads are packed down enough to be passable, and despite this, the public schools were closed today. But the benefit of the clear roads is that we were able to get out of the house for the afternoon so I wasn't trapped alone in the house with two small children all day.

And now Snow Day, part tres is arriving tomorrow evening, with 10-20 inches expected. At this point, I'm unbelievably thankful school will be open tomorrow, because I'm not sure if K will have it again for the rest of the week. I would be very surprised indeed if B will have work on Wednesday; my only question is if they will close the libraries early tomorrow evening, given when the snow is supposed to start. I should make sure to get to the grocery store tomorrow to get more milk and bread, but other than that, we are well set for food and entertainment during the coming captivity.

Growing up in the lake effect zone of Lake Michigan, this is a large, but not unusual amount of snow for back home. We would get a couple of storms like this every year, and I'm not even sure if we would have gotten a snow day out of this in my school district (we didn't bus many students from rural areas, the normal reason schools closed for snow in our area. We were actually most likely to close school for ice). The difference was, of course, that we got steady snow all winter long and were well equipped and practiced with dealing with this amount of snow. I really don't blame Philadelphia, where last month a local news program had an entire segment on how it was so unbelievably cold that people had to bundle up to go outside and were staying inside (cold weather in January! How shocking!), for not being quite so prepared and we're doing pretty well all things considered. People further south of us are having a much harder time with the same amount of snow.

I suppose snow is all a matter of perspective. I was re-reading some of the Little House books at work the other week, and if you want perspective on winter - WELL. Leaving aside The Long Winter, I remember a passage in These Happy Golden Years where everyone was outside happily playing because the cold snap had broken and it was only -20 F. And when you think about living through temperatures colder than that in a wooden house with no insulation heated with a single wood stove...brr, is all I can say. There was also the passage in an earlier book where they had moved to town for the winter but Pa hadn't finished the roof yet, where everyone woke up covered in snow. Oh my. This would be why I don't live in North Dakota. And why I enjoy forced air heating. Being stuck inside with two small children for the rest of the week seems like a small thing when we have a functioning furnace, plenty of varied foods, electricity and ample entertainment.