The Pseudo-Blizzard of '08

Wow. We survived. And we only missed a half of a day of school.

For those of you who do not dwell in the Ohio Valley, we got a foot-plus of snow dumped on us this weekend. My informal measurements from our deck indicated that we got 14 inches; some isolated pockets in the area received even more than that. For most of Saturday morning we were under a "blizzard warning", though I don't think we met all the criteria for a full-scale blizzard. But it was close enough for me.

Amazingly, we are back at school today. The sun came out yesterday and heated the roads enough to clean up any icy patches left behind by the plows and the salt trucks. Except for some monster piles of dirty plowed snow at the edges of yards and in parking lots, you really can't tell that we were under a Level 3 snow emergency (Level 3 meaning, "Stay your butt off the roads unless you want to get arrested.")

It was the biggest snow of Ainsley's life, so when the snow stopped Saturday afternoon we took her out to play in it while we dug out the driveway. The first thing she did was to plop face-down in the snow. It's not how I would have chosen to make a snow angel, but she said she wanted to feel the snow on her face. To each her own, I guess.

The worst of it for me was Friday morning. The powers that be in our district decided to plan for an early dismissal rather than a cancellation, even though the forecast was for the snow to start mid-morning Friday and to accumulate to a couple of slushy inches by noon. By the time the snow started falling (and I haven't seen snow fall like that in years), it became painfully obvious that our buses were not going to be able to get kids home safely at the previously scheduled time. So we were dismissed at 11 to navigate snow-covered rural and residential roads. I was fine until the steep hill leading into my subdivision. Midway up, with my little car in the lowest gear and with me trying to stay in the tracks of cars that had gone before, tires started spinning. After a few seconds of panic in which I thought I was going to have to abandon the car and walk, I called my husband for advice. He stated the obvious: put it in reverse, back down a little, and try again, slow and steady. Duh. Why didn't I think of that? (Perhaps because Ainsley had started to freak out and cry by that time.)

Not quite a "big one" like the blizzard of '78, but still one for the record books: it was the highest snowfall total our area has ever seen in the month of March.

Spring cannot get here soon enough.