winter is in the eye of the beholder

i had a text message from karen waiting for me when i woke up yesterday that made me laugh out loud. it read, "so you're getting some snow, eh? i find it hilarious that the national news is freaking out about it. wimps :)" the majority of the humor is in the truth of the statement. state college seemingly cancels school, group meetings, outings & events, etc. at the drop of a hat, often finding themselves with now snow and no school on the same day. it always makes me wonder if there's a principal or superintendent somewhere secretly thinking to themself, "whoops. . . my bad." between that, their inability to salt roads, and the people who think that not plowing is a good idea because "otherwise all the snow would turn into ice," i find myself often shaking my head at the shocking nature of the attitudes toward winter in a town that (here's the kicker) gets winter every single year.

that being said, 10" of snow is a freaking lot of snow to get in 12 hours. i say this for three primary reasons. the first is that despite the early appearing "freak-outs," mostly seen on the local news in the pre-snow hours, i did not really expect any sort of real winter storm. sorry, pa, but your inability to cope with winter over the last 5 years had made me think that you and i have very different ideas about winter weather (as in, if i would have brought pennsylvania home with me for christmas) a friend of course, i could never date pennsylvania given it's apparent love for the steelers, taxidermy, country music, ultimate fighting, and intolerance), it would've spent most of the holiday curled up in my closet - terrified and crying at the real winter happening outside)). but, i stand corrected, obviously. not sure what this means - this alleged 10" of snow? let me walk you through it. luckily for this blog, lacey and i documented the snowfall in between rounds of wii sports and the new super mario brothers game on friday evening. note that these hours are really, really, really estimated, because the new mario brothers game is really, really fun.

hour 3ish:
















hour 5ish:

hour 12 (aka: the next morning):

the second reason is that i was the self-appointed shoveler yesterday. this has something to do with a responsibility that i feel that comes along with being from iowa and a recognition that i've not been getting in the gym time that i would like to be lately and shoveling is a really great workout. this wasn't immediately evident as the beginning stages of shoveling actually had to occur from the inside of the townhouse. this was new for me. 
i don't actually know how much snow fell, but (once outside) it was almost up to my knees in most places , which meant shoveling had to take place in vertical layers. but don't worry, mom and dad, i did shovel the neighbors' half of the stoop, too. and my back and arms hurt today, which i take as proof that shoveling really is a great workout and that i've shoveled very, very little in my life. on most occasions i say that the one thing that my dad has that would be fun to have is an electric drill. it seems practical with all of the moving and rehanging of things that i do. however, this weekend i wondered if the thing that i needed wasn't a snowblower. . . .(on a related side note, copper beech didn't come plow out our complex until almost 6pm. how ridiculous is that?!)

the third reason actually isn't its own reason, i think, so much as it is the standard complaint that i have about winter. i hate cleaning my car off. hate it, hate it, hate it. most people that i know in the midwest have themselves a nice garage parking situation that alleviates this chore. however, this is the post-shoveling situation that lacey and i were faced with yesterday:

i'm not even kidding you, when i was done shoveling out my parking space, i "brushed" (as in, shoveled) the snow off of my car and then re-shoveled my parking space, as i had just dumped the equivalent of a brand new snow onto the ground. though, oddly i was a lot happier to be shoveling light fluffy snow than scraping that and a thin layer of ice off of my car. go figure.

so, the moral of the story is this: pennsylvania still likely doesn't know how to deal with winter (and sadly may not figure it out during my tenure here). so, if what people are saying are things like "snowmageddon," i will gladly roll my eyes along with you. however, if what people saying is, "scooping out of all of that is a heck of a lot of work," i will be nodding my head in agreement. and then understanding why it was so exciting for us to move (with our snowblower) to a house with a lgarage, a lot less sidewalk and a lot shorter driveway.