That’s sarcasm in case you didn’t pick up on it.
Seems everyone is home with their kids today. Well, at least that is what Twitter is telling me. In MY day, schools didn’t close for 3 to 5 inches, to my dismay and probably my parent’s delight. I’m not being a curmudgeon, they didn’t. Maybe it was a Catholic school thing, because I swear kids in public school got WAY more snow days than me. Maybe the nuns thought it would be good for our constitution, hehe. I remember putting on my uniform, maybe tossing sweatpants over my knee socks so I didn’t get frostbite on my mostly bare legs, and trudging through snow several blocks to get to the bus pickup, and that was it. No big deal…
Nowadays, seems the weather folks say “OMG stock up on provisions and close the schools we’re getting anywhere between 3 and 17 inches!!!!”. That’s about the spread I’ve heard for IL, because c’mon, they don’t actually know until it hits us, and even then they could get it wrong as to what it CURRENTLY doing depending on your zipcode. It’s Chicago! And then we get MAYBE 3-5 inches spread slowly across an entire day. And because it’s CHICAGO and you know, we’ve all been here before, the snowplows go to it, everyone goes on with their day, they (hopefully) drive more cautiously and put on an extra layer. Except for the Snowpocalypse of 2011, I can’t even remember a snowfall that has truly impressed me in the last 9 years or so. I say 9 years because that’s how long I’ve been in Oak Park, and we can get significantly different amounts of precipitation than where I used to live way out in the Western suburbs. So I reset my snow-OMG meter.
Nonetheless, I was working from home today, so I raised the blinds to watch the Winter Wonderland unfold, kept the front walk ways shoveled for pedestrians (including my neighbor’s sidewalk cause she has a small baby and I’m awesome like that). I left the back yard alone so I could get a nice stream of pictures as the snow built up…might regret that later, LOL. There is a pergola but it’s not covered, so it might have a bit less snow on it than the ground, but it is close. I’ll update this later with more pics as the snow builds up.
This was at 9:30am. The chair seat is a good gage of depth:
At about 10:30am, finally starting to build:
Noon. I had some homemade chili, then shoveled the front walkways and stairs at this point. Maybe 3 inches deep, 4 in a few places, so not too bad. But since the snow is wet and heavy I plan to shovel multiple times, I don’t need to mess up my back any more than it already is. Still leaving the back for later so I can get good pictures! My husband will love me for that, ha!
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And at 1:30pm. Not a snowpocalypse by any stretch yet.
And at 2:30pm, it started picking up a bit again. Roads are still clear as far as I can see, thankfully.
3:45pm – definitely a good 5 to 6 inches there now. And it’s a bit sheltered, so I’d say it’s maybe another inch deeper in front.
And lastly at 5PM, and it’s coming down pretty furiously now.
And this is what it looked like in the back yard after my 3rd sidewalk shoveling shift, around 6:30pm, and it has finally stopped snowing, for the meantime.
Not yet impressed, but I am furtively raising one eyebrow in case this keeps up all night.
Don’t get me wrong, people are completely entitled to bitch and moan about the weather. The weather that Chicago has for 4-6 months out of every year, and has for the history of everything ever. Lord knows my husband does, LOL. I just don’t get all the fuss. It’s not tornadoes, or tsunamis, we’ll all be back to normal by tomorrow night most likely. If not, we’ll survive, as we did the blizzard of 2011. It’s mostly just inconvenient right now, and really beautiful.
I live for heavy snows. And to me, if the worse thing that happens to me today is that I am forced to stay home from work (I can work from home which helps) and have a snow day with my family, well then I’m pretty lucky. Sadly, my husband is NOT working from home, so I have to frolick outside alone. So go make a snowman, or stay in and enjoy a hot cocoa under a blanket, or both! I plan to.
