But first, a recap of the past few days...
Friday, after making our way through the world's longest express checkout line at Whole Foods -- apparently even panic shoppers can't afford to buy more than 15 items there -- we hunkered down at home with our laptops and alternated between working and watching the snow accumulate. Josh did some pre-emptive shoveling late that night and saw our neighbor's giant magnolia tree shed a limb onto the power lines. There were sparks, and the lights flickered, but fortunately we didn't lose power.
It was still snowing next morning when Josh went out for a second round of shoveling -- he also shoveled our elderly neighbor's sidewalk and front walk because he's that kind of guy.
The snow was very sticky, so everything was weighed down with white stuff.
Here are a couple shots of the house from Saturday morning.
And here's the view down our street before the plow came through. For some reason, our tiny 1-block street is one of the higher-priority residential streets in Arlington, so it has been plowed several times over the past few days while most of our friends and neighbors are still waiting for their streets to be plowed for the first time.
Our neighbor's bamboo does not do well under the weight of wet, sticky snow. Good thing we don't have any wild pandas in our back yard.
Our neighbors across the street invited several of us over for cocktails on Saturday evening. It was a welcome respite from shoveling and hunkering down indoors. Even though everyone's sidewalk was shoveled, it was still quite an endeavor to get across the unplowed street. It was so nice to get out of the house and socialize with other people in our stocking feet that we stayed much later than we intended to. Fortunately, another neighbor shoveled a path across the street, which made it much easier to get home.Sunday was clear and sunny, but cold. The snow looked very pretty, but was blinding if you weren't wearing sunglasses.
Our neighbor's magnolia tree shed so many big limbs that the fire department put yellow CAUTION tape around their house so no one would walk under it. Fortunately, none of the limbs landed on their house, car, or power lines, but that could still happen tonight or tomorrow as the wind picks up. Hang in there, tree!
We had an impressive amount of accumulation on our picnic table in the back yard. I like how the snow piled up on the backs of the chairs!
Josh cleared the snow off our car and shoveled out the driveway -- which was no small task. He piled all the snow up in the front yard...
And built himself a snow fort! The neighborhood kids were very impressed -- as were their dads. Josh said he was going to hide in it and throw snowballs at unsuspecting passers-by. I guess all this snow brings out his inner 12-year-old.
Sunday evening we took a cue from Saturday's event and invited a bunch of neighbors over to watch the Super Bowl, since everyone's original plans had been canceled due to the snow. Despite being thrown together at the last minute, we had quite the spread of snacks and drinks, thanks to contributions from everyone who came.Monday Josh and I both worked from home. We were running low on milk and eggs, so we ventured out to Safeway in the late afternoon, only to discover that they had no milk, eggs, meat, or produce, and were low on many canned goods and frozen foods as well. I've never seen so many empty shelves in a supermarket! One woman took a photo of her son standing in the empty produce section with an exaggerated pout. We picked up a few other things we needed and stopped at Giant on our way home. Their supply truck must have made it through, because they were well-stocked with milk and eggs. Yay!
Monday evening we were supposed to give a presentation about our renovation project to our neighborhood civic association, so I packed up my laptop and we trudged through the snow to our community house. Unfortunately, (1) we didn't have the right adaptor to hook my Mac laptop up to the projector, and (2) only 5 people showed up for the meeting, so we decided to postpone the presentation until the March meeting. I hope we get a better turnout next time!
Today I was planning to go into the office since I had a 4 pm meeting, but the weather forecast said the snow was going to start at noon, and Metro announced they may close their above-ground stations (including the one by my office) early if the snow started accumulating on the tracks. I called a co-worker who lives nearby to see if I could get a ride with him, but he said he planned to head home around 3. So, I ended up rescheduling the meeting for next week and working from home. Of course, it is now after 5 and we've only had a light dusting of snow so far, so I probably would have been able to get home just fine on the Metro, but I guess it's better to be safe at home than sorry and stranded in Silver Spring, MD.
Now it's looking like the brunt of the storm is going to hit us tomorrow, with heavy snow and strong, gusty winds. I imagine most people will be working from home, and the government and schools are likely to be shut down for the 3rd day in a row. The Washington Post has dubbed this storm 'Snowverkill,' and if we get the 7-14 inches of snow predicted, the total snowfall for this winter will be nearly equivalent to my height. Enough already!
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