This weekend was the first major snowstorm of the winter (at least for our area). My brother bought Payton a new snowsuit for Christmas, and to be honest, I was hoping to never need it.
Well it was not the case. At first the forecasters were calling for something like 18″ of snow. It seemed to go down every hour though. By the time the storm arrived, it was only supposed to be a few inches, but with some freezing rain.
I made it home with Payton on Saturday around 3:30 and there was a good bit of snow, so I decided to take her out. We tried to build a snowman, but she just wanted to sit there and pat the base. If I tried to put a second level on our creation, she would yell at me.
I decided to try and shovel the driveway while she was playing. I figured it would be easy to keep an eye on her and she was moving so slow that there would be no way she could go out on the road without me seeing.
Well…I was right. She definitely moved slow. However, she wanted to help me. I found her little shovel and tried to get her to shovel the sidewalk, but she was pretty bad at it. She then kept coming up to me and wanting my shovel. She then started whining, so I took her inside. We were out for almost two hours. The snowsuit worked great, she was dry and warm, minus her nose, she kept pulling her scarf down.
I also need to rant for a second. The governor declared a state of emergency (on Friday I think). People were freaking out that this storm was going to be really bad. When the storm did not live up to the hype, people then freak out about the overreaction. One thing I heard a bunch of people complaining about was the fact that commercial vehicles were not allowed on interstates.
Here is what cracks me up: these are always the same people. They just complain about everything. A few years ago when there was a huge accident on I-80 where it was icy and tractor-trailers were involved, I remember people flipping out that they should not allow trucks on the highway when it is icy and bad out. And now, I see some of these people saying “oh my god, it is so ridiculous how everyone overreacts over a little snow!”
They do the same thing when schools close due to the weather. “In our day, we went during snowstorms, there had to be like a foot of snow before they cancelled!” And then, if the school does not cancel: “Are you kidding me? What if something happens? Is it really worth sending our kids out in this weather?”
I would be interested to see how accidents (especially fatalities) compare to similar storms from recent years.
