Saturday, January 19, 2008 - Another day of snow so soon?

The weather people have been warning us most of the week that we will once again have snow and maybe sleet and ice today and tonight. Did we believe them? Well, maybe a little, but sometimes it's hard to take them seriously. After all this is the week end. We almost always have bad weather during the week.

I had warned my daughter last night, bad weather was coming in again, possibly sometime even as early as later in the night. She acted totally shocked! Does this child never watch television or listen to the radio? Apparently not. That's the job for her mother, I suppose. (I'm also the official tornado warner for her, too, only I have been known to assume she would know when there was bad weather around.) Anyway she was forewarned this time about the snow, sleet, ice, cold weather, etc.

We had no signs of bad weather when we left her house last night around 9:00-9:15. Still not a lot of anything special this morning. Seems the front decided to stall along the way. By around 9:00 this morning I called my sister to see if they intended to walk this morning, knowing full well they wouldn't move their bodies out of the house if there was a possibility of a single snowflake touching the ground around us. She surprised me, however, and called back around 10:00, after obviously carefully deliberating and weighing all the pros and cons of how much snow would or would not hit the ground within the next hour or so.

As we were leaving the house we did see a few drops of moisture on the windshield and even a fat, fluffy flake on occasion as we made our way to the mall. We each even made our guys give us a ride to the drive thru so we wouldn't get our little heads wet, just in case the sky should drop a flake between the car and the door.

(Let me get a little off course here to tell something my husband and I both noticed upon arriving at the drive thru. It was blocked by a car in the right hand lane and at about the time we wanted to go thru an armored truck pulled up and stopped. The car in the right lane pulled up a bit and the armored truck was in the left lane. We could see a couple of guys standing outside the door, not really talking to each other, but maybe standing a little apart, but something about them just drew my attention to them as kinda strange. Just made me a little suspicious. So thought my husband, and apparently the armored truck guy also, because he didn't stay there any length of time before he hit the petal to the metal and he was out of there.

I don't think he moved out of courtesy to let us get there. And I don't think he had made a wrong turn into that shopping mall today, either. I believe he wasn't taking any chances, and for that, I thank him because I've had enough of being in the wrong place at the right time lately. Case in point...right before Christmas or right after Christmas, I really can't remember which because I failed to mark it on my calendar for future reference, we needed to stop by the local grocery store on the way home from walking. My husband had decided to play nice and since it was a colder than we had had recently day, he gave me a ride to the front door. He was going to park and then come into the store. I had noticed a couple of police cars sitting out front, but really didn't think a lot about it. I got out and started around the back of our car when this police officers says, "Don't go in that store, ma'am, there's a hold up?robbery in progress." I'm not sure which word he used exactly, but he didn't have to tell me twice. I immediately started trying to find where my husband had parked, but in the meantime, I noticed several other people who also weren't allowed in the store, one being an employee. I walked over and asked if that was what the officer had said, and they said that was right. It dawned on me if there was a hold up or robbery inside, what the heck were we doing standing there in open view so they could shoot us up on the way out? The police office was hiding behind his car. Duh! I mentioned this to the people around me, and they all ran that thought through their little brains and at the same time we all scattered. We were all sitting ducks, for goodness sakes. Or, I guess we were more standing ducks. I found the car, got in and we waited it out. (Oh, and big brave husband was still hiding safely in the car, not bothering to let me know where he was parked! I had to search for him.) But since I didn't want to miss out on all the excitement, as I said we waited it out. Hey, I'd gone through this much, might as well see it through to the end. They cleared the way for us to go into the store and we all went about our shopping without any problems, so I don't know if it was a possible shoplifter and they had carried him/her into the manager's office to talk to him/her, whether it was really a robbery/hold up of the little bank inside the store, or whether it was just a joke. Anyway, that was beyond a doubt the most exciting part of my day that day, then I went home and promptly forgot to blog about it...if I was even blogging at that time!) I've been known for getting myself into a lot of things in my lifetime, so I shouldn't be too surprised. It's just that I'm getting too old for too much excitement anymore. Things aren't like they used to be. Like thirty five years ago I found some kind of weird excitement in sliding sideways down an ice slicked hill hitting any mailboxes in the path of the car. Yep, that happened! Before children. Now, I'm pretty content to stay close by home when I know there's ice out there.

Back to the original story...the relatives arrived and we made our first round around the mall and when we looked outside what did we see? Snow coming down so thick we couldn't believe it. My sister immediately says as she shakes and shivers from fright, "Ohhhh, we've got to get home!" Heck, I was surprised they came out in the first place! But we did stick it out for another round and even though it was a good amount of snow we all made it home alright. I guess. I haven't heard anything else from them, so I guess they made it home alright.

As for us, we had to make a side trip by Costco for some more groceries. This weather always makes people feel the need for more food. We think we're going to be stuck for at least a month without anything to eat or drink and we can dream up more things we just have to have to make it through.

What would a day like this be without a good hot bowl of potato and dumplings like my Mama used to make? Good old comfort food! Only problem was I forgot to add the chicken bouillon cubes and after finally figuring out what was missing, had to go back and add that. It wasn't as good as I was hoping it would be, but after playing around with the bouillon it was better. And since I was making dumpling I made another pan of biscuits. Just in case we're iced in and we need them for breakfast tomorrow.

Make mental note to self: self, don't use red potatoes again in the potato and dumplings. They don't have enough starch in them. Since it was all I had, it was better than nothing.

My daughter and son-in-law had planned to take my husband and me out for dinner tonight to celebrate his birthday. Since the weather wasn't so great, we took a rain check on that. Happy birthday, Sweetie. It's not been that awful just being stuck in the house all day alone with me, has it? I didn't think so.