Oh, the weather outside is...wait, what?

Well folks, brace yourself for yet another post about crazy weather, comin' your way from the Winter Wonderland also known as...North Carolina? It appears that Mother Nature is all kinds of confused, because she provided us with a super-early "major snow event", at a time where our temperatures typically are still hovering around 55* every day. I mean, I know my experience here is still pretty limited, but since Team WestEnders moved to this area, I don't think we've even seen so much as a stray flurry until at least January--and certainly not before the holidays. (To further illustrate my point: there are still plenty of colorful leaves hanging onto the trees, which makes the whole Fall/Winter mashup that much more perplexing...)

So yeah, the forecast was kind of a Big Deal, right from the start. Heck, there was even a report (on Facebook, so it MUST be true, right?) that the famed Harbinger of Doom called Jim Cantore had been sighted in our state, so that was super-terrifying. (That is, until I learned that he was supposedly hanging out several hours west of here, in the mountains, causing me to breathe a deep sigh of relief...) However, the prevailing opinion in our house--jaded as we are from our years in the slightly-more-northern-Mid-Atlantic--fell strongly into the category of "sure, uh-huh, let's just wait and see about that, shall we?"

Yet at the same time, we're not the kind of people who are likely to completely blow off an episode of impending...potential...meteorological mayhem. And we're definitely not cavalier enough to just skip the readiness drills--like stocking up on groceries, filling the cars with gas, checking out library books, and charging all our devices in case of power outages.

Which brings me to my next item: seriously, what the HECK is up with our stupid weather this year? Two hurricanes and a tropical storm brushed through here only a couple of months ago...so aren't we DONE yet? The only bright side to this is that we had the opportunity to become a lot more emergency-preparedness-savvy from our delightful Summer season...thus we still had some non-perishables and bottled water socked away from the LAST proverbial sky-falling scenario.

Anyway, we went to bed Saturday night with no clear idea of what the morning would bring. Adding to the uncertainty was the seemingly somewhat...flaky (Ha! Sorry...) path the storm was taking, where it looked like it was totally going to miss Raleigh (30 miles to our south), while dumping an amount of white fluffy stuff on us that varied from 3 to 10 inches...along with some regular old rain...or maybe sleet...or both...who really knows?



When we woke up, the threatened--I mean "promised"--precipitation had indeed materialized, in a powdery form that admittedly blanketed everything in a very picturesque fashion. And I have to say, since I now live in a place where this only happens once or twice a Winter, I find I'm able to appreciate the frosty landscape in all its glittery glory...or whatever. Heck, with the holidays approaching, it even feels--dare I concede it?--festive!

Seizing on the recreational possibilities in a manner truly befitting an active teenage male, Riley almost immediately began the delicate negotiations required to rally his friend group for a game of Snow Football. And since I'd read that it was now supposed to change over to non-icy showers, I decided I'd better take a stroll around the neighborhood while it was still scenic...and before it transformed into a slushy mess.

Meanwhile--not unexpectedly--school was cancelled for Riley on Monday, so he already knew he'd have an extension to his weekend. To be on the safe side, I'd brought home a company laptop before wrapping up on Thursday, so tomorrow I'll be able to work from, oh, right about here...under a blanket on the guest bed in our spare room...in my pajamas if I so choose...sans makeup (and coworkers who choose to Skype me will just have to deal with it)...with a mug of hot tea by my side at all times.

Yeeeaaahh, it's gonna be rough, I tell ya...but somehow I'll muddle through...and with temperatures predicted to climb back into the low-to-mid 40s by Tuesday, everything will get back to normal, and this will all become but a distant...and perhaps even mildly fond memory. Buh-bye, and good riddance, Diego!