What on earth is this?

Hello Tuesday!

As per always, I hope your weekend was a good one.

Here we got a winter storm.

A fairly big one, but also a fairly disappointing one.

Our temperatures are cold, and will so be for the foreseeable future. As I am writing this post it is 19F outside (-7C). Night time temps range from 3-16F (-9 to -16C) for the next ten nights.

It is cold. It is much, much colder than it usually is this time of the year.

Am I complaining? No, I am not. As long as there are power, food, warm clothes and a warm house I am happy.

That being said, my heart goes out to all the people that are sitting in ice cold houses now, the homeless and all the people who have lost power.

Why do I think the winter storm we have had is disappointing?

Well, we woke up to a white world on Sunday morning. But, it was sleeting so hard. We had sleet for like twelve hours straight.

Sleet, is rain that freezes as it gets closer to the ground.

In Swedish I suppose you can call it “kornsnö”. That is the closest I can think of.

The snow fell as ice crystals, and those crystals piled up. As we were shoveling the snow it felt like we were actually shoveling sugar. So strange.

And as the sleet fell, it sounded like frozen rain drops.

So no, it was not the quiet, fluffy snow event we were hoping for.

BUT, it was also a very devastating storm, lots of people lost power, the roads were absolutely dangerous to drive on, people have died in this cold weather.

It is freezing cold. Flights were canceled left and right, events were canceled and stores closed down.

And to walk in said sleet … Not so fun either. I do not even think the neighborhood kids were sledding and having fun on Sunday. The big snow ball fight scheduled on The National Mall in DC got canceled as well. I mean, who can make snowballs out of “sugar”?

And no pretty snow were covering trees or bushes either.

No, I want a better storm next time, thank you very much.

Here are some pics from Sunday morning as Peter and I ventured out, a few pics from yesterday made it as well.

Our deck Sunday morning.

This is the road right outside our neighborhood.

A  totally random chair along the road.

The creek is frozen,

On the golf course. 

It was like walking in sugar.

Some kids were sledding, at least for a while.

So happy to live next to a golf course when it snows.

The pond on said course is frozen.

And it gets so cold as you walk on the open fields.

Peter on his way home.

Snow shoeing in the snow. 

I took this pic yesterday as I was about to start shoveling snow.  I am standing on top of it, the snow would not budge.  It had a thick, thick ice layer.

I had to hack the snow with a spade before I could start shoveling.  I think it might have been the hardest snow I have ever worked with. JUST plain nasty!!  And, we were shoveling on Sunday as well.  But a new layer of snow and ice were covering our walk way.

A layer of snow on the car. Sure, we had cleared the car once already.

However, it will be a very wintery week. This snow is going nowhere for quite sometime.

It will be sunny though, so I am sure the sun will help despite it being so cold.

As I stated above, to shovel our walkway to the car yesterday was something else. First I had to force a spade down into the thick crust to break the ice on top, then I took the snow shovel and got rid of it. Heavy as f!! Today my arms will be sore, for sure :-)

But hey, I did get a workout.

Have a lovely Tuesday, friends!!