When I first moved here, I often complained about the lack of actual seasons aside from “hot,” “slightly less hot,” and “holy God where did all the moisture in my body go?” That was when we lived with the in-laws in their weird little ‘tropical’ tri-state area of HELL. That entire area is strangely tropical and we do not know why. Something with wind patterns and fluctuation and all sorts of other, smarty-pants words meteorologists use to confuse us.
Well, the past two winters have been quite snow-filled. What was once just a season of rain with a tiny bit of mild, gone the next day snow fall, has been toppled with snow, snow, snow. We’ve had four major systems move through here in less than two month’s time! Not all of them have hit us, specifically, but the mountains are suffering hard right now. The horrible picture above was taken as we left work yesterday (we were walking and not stopping as the snow was quite heavy). The ground was clear when we arrived at 8am. It only took two hours of wet, sticky snow to get the ground covered. Of course, because it was so wet and heavy, power outages EVERYWHERE! Unfortunately, our building has a back-up generator. Lame.
Seriously, though… every has been freaking out anytime the news so much as mentions snow. Even worse, ice. Snow + ice = ARMAGEDDON! When I first moved down here, I figured that this state was used to snow. I mean, Pennsylvania and West Virginia are Appalachian bros, right? Wrong. I’m sure the folks who live out in the middle of nowhere are a bit more resilient… but the majority of West Virginia lives in cities. It’s such a task explaining this to my family! Essentially, West Virginia has a LOT of hugely huge mountains that you can’t live on. So, everyone clusters along the river or what valleys they can find. There are four major areas in this state… and a bunch of smaller, dependent places. If you look at a map, all of these big places are on the borders of other states. Ha, go figure on that one. There are also the completely disconnected from everything communities out in the hills.
Also, fun fact, if you want to see the horrors of mountain top removal, come visit West Virginia. It’s gorgeous, I tell you. Who doesn’t want some sludge? Mm, good. We have to look at one every time we leave for Pennsylvania and it makes me boil with rage. My husband has considered going the long way around in an effort to be spared the next hour of my ecological hippie ranting.
Anyway, it’s like stepping into the Twilight Zone. Where I grew up, snow was something that happened… a lot. I remember digging my way out of our front door. I remember having a small, child-sized snow shovel when I was little so I could help my dad. I remember getting two weeks worth of snow days every school year (I didn’t start home schooling until 8th grade) and being thrilled when the rare case came up where we didn’t use them all and we were out of school before mid-June! Imagine my shock when my husband said they always got out in May. May? MAY? That is unheard of where I come from. I remember the time when we had that huuuge Blizzard and we were scared we’d be in school until JULY!
So, when everyone around me is freaking out, I’m looking at like, three inches of snow and trying not to laugh. I am surrounded by ridiculous people and sometimes I love to call my family back home to make fun of them. It’s what we do. I have to get revenge on my husband teasing me for never saying the ‘G’ at the end of any word ending in -ing. Like, instead of reading, I’m readin’. It only happens when I’m comfortable enough with people to let my Pennsylvania Dutch shine. I don’t know why my area does this, but we do. We don’t have time to waste on silly G’s are the end of a sentence, damn it! At least I can say color properly!
Anyway, it’s been snowing a lot here and probably will continue to do so, just like it did last year. My mother-in-law will call us, every single time, and say “we’re gonna get some snow” like snow is the equivalent of a small pox outbreak. Every school will call off, before it even starts snowing. We will probably get like, two inches. There will be twenty bajillion wrecks on the interstate because stupid people can’t drive in the morning. The news will talk about “black ice”. Walmart and every grocery store will run out of milk, bread, and eggs.
As for me? I’ll be hanging out, enjoying the lovely view from my computer room window. The mountains look awesome with heavy, wet snow on all the trees. It’s my favorite.
Just look at those twiggy little trees. They look ugly all dead and dormant, but pile some snow on them and they’re a masterpiece. I wanted to try and get some macro pictures, but the husband refused to cooperate and so I only got this, outside of our apartment building.
Oh, and my closet is now gloriously clean and organized. I have never had a closet this clean and organized. I am hoping I can keep this trend up, because it’s cut down my time to get dressed in the morning exponentially. I am not a morning person. I was one of those kids who wore their clothes to bed in an effort to get up later for school. Ha.
Yes, that is my wedding dress in the back. No, it has not been properly stored or packaged.
This is what our walk-in closet looks like. It has a floor! It has a glorious, clean floor! Of course, the husband’s side is pretty sparse and I cut off the top parts. His side has all of our ridiculously large suitcases and shoulder bags; mine has shoe boxes and shoes thrown willy-nilly. Oops.
I actually sorted my closet, too. All the stuff on the left side of the shoe container is the stuff I can wear to my secondary workplace, which requires black as a main color. All the stuff to the right is all my other stuff. I don’t need that stuff sorted, I know it by looking at it, but black tends to blend together and finding something for work when you’ve only got twenty minutes to get ready? A pain. Now that problem is solved.
I love my little coordinated containers. I already had the two brown ones from Walmart, so they don’t completely match, but oh well. The green ones are from Target. We had to go back and get more because I ran out the first time. Now there are two spare ones hanging out in there–a little basket and a large container.
The large blue tupperware stores our off-season clothes and unused stuff in large, vacuum sealed, space bags.
The two brown, Walmart baskets I got awhile back. I originally got the one with the lid for my questionable items and my swimsuits. Well, I had to throw a bunch of stuff out, so now it just holds my questionable items. The big basket was never used, but now it stores all my hoodies. I. Love. Hoodies. I wear them almost everyday I work at my main job, because I work in a full lab space with acid and fancy clothes + acid = not allowed, even if I never touch it. Not quite sure how jeans are any better.
The green containers with leaves (at least, I think they look like leaves) have my bras and my sleepy items. Why do I have so many bras? I have about ten, but some are C’s and others are D’s because my boobs can’t settle on a size. I also have to rotate them due to elastic wearing down. It’s a busty lady thing. I can’t imagine what people with truly huge boobs do. Yikes. The empty container on top will be used for whatever.
The thin container has my swimsuits and the empty basket will, again, be used for whatever. The large green basket has all my tights and hosiery. Welcome to working for a pretending-to-be-classy department store! Also, I cannot stand wearing ‘career’ pants or nicer dresses/skirts of any kind without hosiery on. It looks tacky without it and I can’t understand why people continue to do it. Maybe because they have prettier, less bruised (and transparently pasty) legs than I do.
The bedroom is fully cleaned and now all that waits is the computer room… which will be a long, arduous process because I’m making my husband in charge of it. He takes forever to do anything, which is why I don’t typically let him clean. It’s happening, though, albeit it slowly. I even made him a list.
It’s crazy how fast they grow. Evangeline has been changing leaps and bounds since we returned home from Key West! It’s almost as if she’s hit her stride with talking and is learning new words every single day. She’s almost stringing them together, too. She’ll repeat phrases we say, long after we’ve said them, like: “I get you!” is her version of “I’m gonna get you!” It’s cute.
