I woke up last Thursday morning around 6:30, as usual, snuggled up next to Jamieson in the bed in his room. After a few minutes, he made it clear that neither he nor I were going back to sleep. So I groped around for my glasses, sat up, and opened the curtains…
… to a snow-covered backyard.
Snow!
2.5 inches of it, to be precise.
The most wonderfully magical part about it was that I had no idea it was supposed to snow. Normally I am very diligent about following the weather forecast. I like to know what’s coming. Parenthood has not exactly taken that interest away, but it’s definitely left me with far less time and energy to check in on the weather every day. So when I opened the curtains to an unexpected field of sparkling white, it was quite a thrill!
We all got up and put on our shoes and coats and headed out to the backyard. Jamie wasn’t quite sure what to make of the snow. Last time he experienced it was on Christmas Eve and it didn’t really seem to register at that point.
He spent a little time mucking about and poking at it with his fingers. I had to leave for work soon, so we went inside and had breakfast.
It continued to snow all day long. My office closed at 3:00 because it didn’t seem to be letting up, and people in Texas freak out when there is any kind of winter precipitation, even in the tiniest amount.
The snow continued all afternoon and into the evening. We took Jamie outside for a while and this time, he was pretty excited about it. He stomped around and laughed and sat down and tasted the snow and generally had a great time.
Later in the evening, the snow was still coming down, and it was a really wet heavy snow. The branches of our crape myrtle trees were bowed down almost to the ground, so we went outside and tried to shake off as much snow as we could with a rake to try to prevent them from breaking. Doc did that several more times throughout the night. I think he saved the trees by doing that. There were so many tree branches down all over town by the next morning.
Work was cancelled for me (although I did a lot of work from home during the day) on Friday. The official snowfall total was 12.5 inches, an all-time record for our area, and making this the second snowiest year on record, to date. I measured 11 inches at our house. We were very lucky that we didn’t lose power and that our neighbor’s live oak tree didn’t drop any branches onto our cars parked underneath. Some of our friends had damage to house and cars from branches, and many more were without power for hours or days.
The amount was astounding. I have never seen this much snow in my life outside of a mountaintop.
You can click on any of the photos below to view a slideshow of the photos and video we took.
For Christmas Doc and I went a little lighter than normal with the gifts, by choice. He gave me some really nice things though, including some balsamic vinegar, bamboo cooking spoons, and this gorgeous Le Creuset cast-iron skillet. I adore it. I can barely lift it, it’s so heavy!! And the enamel is droolworthy bright beautiful red.
The unseasonable warmth of the past week collapsed under the weight of a wintry storm. Snow fell for hours. Tiny ice pellets coated my car.
I must take issue with a popular campaign promise that many of the Democratic contenders are making. In the words of Wesley Clark, “We must do everything in our power to send George W. Bush back to Texas and return the White House to its rightful owner — the American people.” Now, I am wholeheartedly in favor of getting GWB the hell out of our government, BUT (and this is a very big but) I have a problem with the “sending him back to Texas” part. There are millions of people who happen to live in Texas, including (unfortunately) myself, who DON’T WANT HIM BACK! It’s like when you open the milk carton, and it’s gone bad — really horribly rancid — and you feel compelled to say, “Here, this is disgusting, smell this!” What are you thinking?! Don’t force something nasty onto an innocent, undeserving person!
It snowed today! I was worried that the whole winter would pass us by without any winter-type precipitation. Too bad it had to happen on a weekend, when we wouldn’t get to miss work. I guess that would be too much to ask for, for 
I made a snow angel in the front yard (ha! yes, I’m five years old). We took a walk, built the snowman, and took the cats out into the courtyard to explain to them that the world outside the four walls of their loving warm house is fraught with wet cold uncomfortable peril, and why would they ever want to try to sneak out the front door? Two hours later when we left to go see a movie (“Mystic River,” I love Tim Robbins), someone had knocked our snowman over. Sigh.