Snowmageddon 2011

When's the last time you heard of Alabama being brought to it's knees by a blizzard?
Yeah, I can't remember either.  I went to my parents' house intending to stay for the weekend, but wound up snowed in for seven days.  (SEVEN.  WHOLE.  DAYS.)  They've only lived there for ten years this August, but not once in those ten years have they had more than an inch and a half--and that only once.  This time, we woke to find seven to nine inches on the ground on various parts of our property.  Nine inches!!  Parts of Huntsville got thirteen.  How insane is that??

We stared out the windows, marveling until we heard loud whining.  Our Simple Dog--does anyone else read Hyperbole and a Half???--Sam, who has trouble figuring out stairs to begin with, couldn't comprehend what the white stuff all over the stairs was.  His torment was endearingly amusing.  Poor Sam--he's just so simple he can't help but amuse.  First he tried to get up the stairs by the pool.

Despite the fact that Stormy climbed them with ease right before him, he still struggled.  After a few minutes, it dawned on him that there were other stairs to try.  More struggling ensued.  I grabbed his bowl and threw a handful of food in it to bribe him.  A few more lunges, and...

Triumph!!!
(Please excuse the fact that all these photos are large and not formatted--it's just because there's so much SNOW!!!!!)

As for the rest of the property, we had 17 acres of snowy goodness in which I wholeheartedly reveled.  The vehicles were covered, the barn was covered, the cows were freaking out, and so Dad and I decided to start clearing the snow off the tops of the cars before it froze overnight.  Playtime ensued.

Side yard:

Front yard from the porch:

Look at my car!!!

Dad's car:

We carved a tunnel through the top of my Saturn:

Tractor-turned-Snow Plow:

And so we headed down to the driveway.  After one run with the tractor:

This is the road we live on.  Looking right:

Looking left:

And looking from the road to the driveway.

It was DEEP!

I stood there in the quiet  for what seemed like an eternity.  With no signs of human touch anywhere, it was as if no one had ever stood at that spot before.  As I stood there, several deer came loping through the woods and ran across where the road would be:

 And, of course, the obligatory self-photo:

The interesting part is that it only snowed from 7pm to about 10 am.  Then the sun came out for an hour before it went down for the night during which temperature went well below freezing.  Thus, all the snow on the driveway became 2 inches of solid ice.  ICE.  It was another six days before I could leave.  Six days the last two of which I spent on the driveway with a shovel, an axe, and a can of windshield de-icer hacking away determined to get out.  We Stones mean business.

So here I am, finally back in good ol' Cooke-vegas.  Today was the first day of classes, and my 8 am Slimnastics met for a whopping five whole minutes this morning.  Five minutes!?!  Why did I have to get reacquainted with 6 am  for a five minute "class"???

Muttermuttergrumblegrumble...

However, I did go take my first ever Zumba class last evening.  :)  And--WOW.  It's definitely a workout, but it's so much fun.  I was mostly worried about not knowing the moves, but it turned out not to be a problem.  If I ever got off from everyone else, I just did my own thing until I caught back up and jumped back in.  And it rocked.  I'm going to start going every Monday.  :)

And there's more good news!  At the end of the week, I'm tagging along when Ryan goes to Atlanta and I'm going to see Erika and Matt for lunch!  I'm so excited!!!

<3
~r.