Thursday, January 20, 2005

Once In A While Days.... TWICE!

Monday the winter winds howled down the street and made it almost impossible to see the houses on the other side. The snow whipped sideways in a mad ballet that scoured some spots of the lawn bare and piled huge drifts elsewhere. Since school was canceled and most of the city was at a standstill, we stayed warm and cozy inside as a family. Nick and the girls treated it like the unexpected holiday it was and I puttered around getting stitching and some computer work done. I was a bit leery of the power with the high winds, so I didn’t try to do anything too essential or crucial on the computer.

Tuesday, the sun came out and the mercury plunged! The girls were heartbroken that there was all this new powdery snow but almost -30 Celsius with the wind-chill!!

Today, we woke up to hear that school was canceled because of another storm about to sweep down upon us, but though the skies looked heavy, there wasn’t a flake of snow to be seen. Our school district is the largest one in New Brunswick with over 12,000 of the 16,500 students being bused, so I am glad if they err on the side of caution. There would never be enough buses to get everyone home in a single run if the storm got bad enough to cancel midway through the school day.

Nick’s mother stayed with us overnight because her husband, Nick’s stepfather, had taken a turn for the worse at the hospital and she didn’t want to be 45 minutes from town if the storm hit or he needed her by his side. We all left the house by 9 this morning to sneak in a few errands or hospital visits and by 11:30 am the snow had begun to fall. It is now fast and furiously white again outside our windows, but the girls did get a good play with the neighbourhood friends for half an hour in the fluffy flakes and returned home totally snow covered and soggy as only kids playing in snowdrifts can get.

They are watching some of the DVDs we picked up with their hands curled around mugs of hot chocolate. Nick and his mom are upstairs too, which has given me the time to run downstairs and do a bit more on the computer. Just one chart left to get camera-ready for Nashville, then it is time to print and assemble the stock to take with me in a few weeks.

I sure hope these storms sweeping up the East Coast take a break that weekend!!!