Winter SUCKS!

I am sooo sick of winter! I think I might have sunlight deficiency syndrome - where you get depressed when you haven't been in the sun long enough. No, on second thought, I have been outdoors plenty and gotten all the fresh air I need - I just hate being COLD!

And driving in snow with idiotic commuters. I feel like I have three near death experiences a night just driving to work! They actually canceled an evening performance on Wednesday which is unheard of. Good thing they cancelled because it took Dh 3 hours just to snow blow our driveway and there's no way I would have made it out of our driveway, let alone to work on time.

We have had three days of school canceled so far due to snow. Probably a foot of snow has fallen in the last big storm on Wednesday. The problem is that there is an inch of ice underneath it all. The highways are great but the neighborhood roads are dreadfull. Our mail-lady had to be pushed out of an enbankment yesterday losing her bumper and back license plate and the school busses were running over a half hour late. Yesterday, Bonut's school bus got stuck and needed a push from parents at the bus stop six times before it actually broke down and the kids all had to wait before another short bus could be sent.

We went outside to make snowmen earlier in the week, but the snow wouldn't stick. Fellow parents, I've learned a great trick for keeping gloves and snow boots on toddlers - DUCK TAPE. Just wrap it around the edge of the pant leg or coat sleeve - nothing budges. No snow in wrists or ankles. The times I have not done this, I have found Babe bootless and mittenless in the snow,(for I don't know how long)while his sisters were supposed to be watching him. Snot and tear icicles stuck to his face and coat, wailing. Good thing he didn't get frostbite.

We lost major portions of two large trees in our front yard, a tulip tree and a pine tree. The weight of the snow and ice was just too heavy and they snapped right off, narrowly missing powerlines. Dh got very worried after this happened and made me go outside with him and his super-duper long painting poles to try and knock snow off other trees that looked particularly dangerous. The technique consists of standing underneath the tree, sticking your pole up there as high as you can and waving it like mad while heaps of ice and snow fall on your head and you hope you don't get knocked out by a deadly icicle. Fun! Fun! Fun! - NOT!!!

Oh, and the power just went out. How fitting. OK - enough complaining. I'm off to blow my nose, take some decongestant and crawl under my heater blanket.