Strike one, Seattle

It snowed. A lot. Now it's very cold.

On Sunday as church was ending, I heard squealing from people standing near me and looked at them, curious why they were creating such a commotion. I saw that they were pointing out the window at giant white flakes floating from the sky. NOOOOOOOOOOOO. I could have cried.
Fortunately, that nonsense stopped before anything stuck and I breathed a sigh of relief and refused to listen to anyone trying to warn me that it was coming back soon.

On Monday, Mr.Wonderful and I delivered a meal to a fellow small grouper who just had surgery. As we drove to Queen Anne, that pesky white stuff came down again. He giggled like a school boy with glee as I glowered in the passenger seat. We chatted with our friend for about ten minutes. I wanted to stay longer and play; she has FUN kids that I got to briefly babysit on the day of her surgery. However, there was no denying the fact that the weather was turning quite fiercely and it'd be wise to get home sooner than later.

I was shocked at how quickly it got 'bad.' It was the kind of snow that you see at the ski lodge... tiny white flakes, super strong wind... When you look at it under the street lamp you think "holy blizzard!" It stuck to the ground at an alarming rate. The roads started getting slick and traffic started going painfully slow. I was quite tense and so relieved I wasn't the one driving. We were almost back to my apartment. There is one sick hill before you can turn to my parking lot and we prayed as we inched up it. About halfway the wheels started slipping. We fishtailed and then just stopped. A horn honked behind us--- really, Toyota Camry??? Can't you see we're slipping?! Mr. Wonderful did an awesome job at being patient and safe and doing everything possible to get up that hill. We tried to go where there was snow (not just ice) to get some traction, but it was to no avail. We decided to park on a side street and walk the remaining way. Once on the side street, however, he wanted to try to get up the hill one more time on a parallel residential street. We couldn't make it a block. After three valiant efforts (and a lady watching us out her window...), we surrendered and parked six blocks away. We scurried to my apartment, cranked the heat.

It was a fun night... one of the benefits of living on the corner of a big intersections and having a lot of windows is you get to see some action when there is inclement weather... We bounced around from window to window... "we've got a slider!" or "here comes a BUS!" We saw some crazy people... some unfortunate car abandoning... but no one was seriously hurt or anything so I felt less guilty for watching others struggle with the elements from my warm perch.

We were stranded for a day... Tuesday morning we went searching for a sled, but everyone within walking distance was sold out. Darn! We walked all around the neighborhoods watching kids have the time of their lives as they flew down the steep hills... secretly hoping someone would offer us a ride! We walked by several sleds just SITTING in someone's yard or propped up against a fence. It took all of our strength to not borrow them... and we definitely contemplated ringing a few doorbells and asking. I wanted to find some cardboard and write "Will work for sled" on it. Worth a shot.

We finally got the guts to drive and we found a weird foam saucer for $16.99--- ripoff? Yes. But our options were SPARSE so we embraced it anyway. After greasing the bottom with vegetable shortening, we found a hill with no kids on it and went at it. It was so fun! Within no time at all there were 4 other kids there and a parent who was monitoring the intersection at the bottom! Perfect! One kid let us use his sled that was WAY better than our saucer... We had no 'tracks' on the bottom, so the saucer just kept going to the curb... it hurts when you hit the curb! The actual sled was awesome though and it went SO FAST.

It's still 20 degrees. I still refuse to drive. While I was 'stranded' for a day, I was with great company so it was far less traumatic than it could have been! Dare I say... fun! However, I still claim my dislike for snow and am quite irritated at Seattle-- I thought I escaped this nonsense when I left Chicago! They've been having weather in the 60s as the snow has fallen here. Go figure!

It's been an interesting couple of months. Several blog-worthy events.. hopefully they'll make it here sooner than later.

I get to spend T-Day tending to sick kids and embracing time and a half. I never care about working the holidays until I hear other people talking about how awesome it is to be with their families blah blah blah. Then I get a little melancholy. I suppose I will just look forward to Christmas Eve that much more!