polar vortex

We survived the Polar Vortex!  I was even able to keep my Raynaud's under control.
This picture was taken in the parking lot at work one morning.  Too bad my car couldn't show the wind chill!

winter weekend

We were hit with winter storm Nemo this past weekend (real scary name, right?).  Unfortunately that meant that it took me an hour to get home from work on Friday, quadruple the normal time, but that was fine because I was safe.  However, when I was finally in reach of home, I got stuck turning onto our street.  So there I sat, in the middle of the street unable to do anything but call Col and think through a plan.  I was supposed to be back downtown to volunteer for an event for the foundation that my employer has in an hour, and seeing as it had taken me that much travel time to get home, I wasn't sure how I was going to make it work. 

I ran home, grabbed a shovel, and thanks to the part of my mom that I have in me (go self-sufficient woman!), I shoveled my car out so that I could park in the driveway, run inside to literally throw on a dress, forgo any hope of fixing my hair or putting on makeup, and head back out to the streets.  I made it to the hotel only about a half an hour late, where Col had beat me and was walking out as I was coming in.  I trudged in, wearing a black dress and my super heavy duty winter boots, not caring about anything other than the fact that I was there (at least I remembered heels to change into).  Despite the weather, the event was a success, and I was glad to have Col there volunteering with me.

When we got home at 11pm, we attacked the driveway, excited to shovel out for the first time at our house.  It took us about 2 hours, and since we were wide awake and enjoying the peaceful, quiet beauty of 1:30am where everything was covered in white glistening snow, we took a walk around the neighborhood.  Afterward, we attempted to pull an all-nighter but only made it to 4am watching Oceans 11 in bed.

Saturday we had such a great day because we never once set foot outside the house.  The plumber came in the morning and fixed all of our plumbing issues which was great, and we unpacked the rest of the boxes/put everything away.  We even got to decorate some.  The house is looking more homey, and we were talking about how it's felt like home since the very beginning.

Despite getting stuck and the rude plow guy I encountered, it was such a fun time enjoying our new homeowner status, even the shoveling.  I am so thankful for our spontaneous-ness in staying up late and enjoying the peaceful walk together around our new neighborhood (we even saw a deer!).  I think we're pretty keen on this homeownership thing :)

What about you?  Did you turn the storm into an opportunity to do something fun/out of the ordinary?

Sunday morning wind and ice-capades

This morning as we pulled into church, one of the parking lot attendants/security guys stopped us and warned us that the entire parking lot was black ice.  We thanked him and slowly found a parking spot, where we then braced ourselves for the frigid cold and wind and climbed out of the car.  We carefully did the small "step-step-steps" of ice walking, until a huge gust of wind snatched our offering envelope out of Col's Bible and whipped it up in the air and away.

I exclaimed how, "We can't even run after it!," because of the ice, so we headed in the direction that it had blown as quickly as one possibly can on sheets of black ice, which really isn't that quick at all.  I couldn't help but burst out laughing as I pictured the two of us, trying to stand upright on the ice and chase down our offering.  Not only that, but the envelope was white and the wind so strong and constant, that we lost sight of it. 

During this time, I also noticed a gentleman in his car who looked ready to park but then pulled towards us as if to help but was probably thinking, "What the heck are these two doing?!" because I'm not sure he saw the whole thing happen.  He ultimately decided to just stay where he was and park.  Col asked where it went, and thankfully we spotted it stuck in the snowbank.  He grabbed it before it could fly away again, and we made our way carefully back toward church and inside, laughing the whole time.

Sometimes, something like this would stress me out (hey, money blowing away is never good).  I'm so thankful that today I didn't even think about that and instead saw how hilarious we looked.  There's nothing like a good laugh to start off the day!