2014: In With a Roar

Well folks, 2014 is already off to a bang.  Unless you're living under a rock, you're well-aware that the Midwest (and East coast) got hammered with a major snowstorm yesterday, followed by record-breaking cold temps.

I'm sitting here before 8 am and the temperature outside is -11 degrees.  Thankfully, I haven't been outside and Mr. RH and I's workplaces are both closed today!

Unfortunately, Mr. RH had to go into work yesterday for about 4-5 hours (because his bosses have questionable decision-making skills), and we got around 6 inches of snow during that time.  His car got stuck multiple time in the parking lot, but I was SO thrilled when he finally made it home safe to me.

We are under a code-red (level red?) travel emergency until at least noon today, so it's actually illegal to be out on the roads unless you are essential government personnel.

Fortunately, neither Mr. RH nor I are essential to anything, so we get a whole day trapped at home!

He vetoed my idea of a Blizzard Baby, and luckily our power has only flickered twice in the past 12 hours - so we are enjoying a lazy day of movies, cleaning the apartment (I use that term loosely), and baking anything I can get my hands on.

I've been binge-watching DIY network (I have the strong urge to demolition a bathroom!) and eating like it's my job.

Rumor has it we got about 11.5 inches of snow ... but you would never be able to tell if you saw some of the drifts around town.  Apparently the major highway has a 4 foot deep drift across it.  #crazytown

I wanted to provide you a visual from the snow in our neck of the woods... but of course it's a little difficult to snap a pic out the window when there's a sheet of ice completely covering the window.  I wonder if the people who built this apartment complex saved money with cheap windows?  

 An hour or so later, I defrosted with a space heater and saw this drift on a neighboring apartment's balcony.  When I first saw it, the drift was even higher.  As is, it's probably a solid 4 feet high.

 Times like today make me wish I was still at my dad's house so I could at least run into our yard and explore for ten minutes until the frostbite risk became too great.

Not sure I want to brave FORTY BELOW windchills to go check out our parking lot.

Hope you're all warm and cozy and, most importantly, NOT at work today. 

Crazy Day

I had high hopes of posting about finally receiving our wedding photos last week.... but apparently life had other plans. 

Yesterday, both Mr. RH and I were in shelter at our respective workplaces, about 500 yards apart, as a tornado touched down less than a mile from where we were.  Of course, at the time we didn't realize how bad things were - I showed co-workers my wedding photos and just relaxed and laughed and listened as the storm raged overhead.

As the dust began to settle, we heard that almost all the roads leading to where we sat were closed or open to emergency personnel only under a state of emergency.

It wasn't until the dust settled this morning that I realized how close we were to some serious destruction. 

There are pictures from around our area here.

I wasn't able to go straight home from work - I stopped by my dad's place on the other side of town, away from the tornado damage to figure out how to get back to our apartment.

Luckily, the worst that happened there was the spring that held the door onto the complex snapped off.  I'll take it.

And now if I could just get a second night of sleep ten hours long, I'd be set to go back to reality.

Hypothetically Grounded.

So last night I was out gallivanting out in central Indiana for several hours. Ran a bunch of errands and ended up in downtown Indy.

Fast forward 4 hours until 9 pm.

BFF calls and warns of imminent Bad Storms and how you Shouldn't Drive In Them.

Dad calls and does the same thing.

Texts from 2 other sweet ladies.. "don't drive home!"

And I watch 34 seconds of the weather and decide I have PLENTY of time to get home.

CUE FORESHADOWING.

I'm about at the point in my drive where one might remark that, "hey, Indiana is all corn fields all the time. Wide open spaces and nothing for miles."

Cue tornado siren.

Umm.... well.

So what does dumb 24-year-old do?

Calls her daddy, duh.

"Ohmigosh I'm at such-and-such location and the sirens are going off and do you think I should get out of my car and go lay in a ditch now?!"

At this point, it isn't even raining. Or storming.

At this point I'm panicked because of the damn siren. For a lot of my life there were no sirens anywhere I lived and I have survived many major tornadoes... but those sirens are scary. All I could hear was "IMMINENT DEATH."

A more thorough evaluation of my surroundings probably would have cued me in to the non-imminent-danger. Or not. Haven't you ever heard of the calm before the storm?! IT EXISTS!

Luckily a McDonalds gas station appeared like a mirage from my dreams.

I pulled over and ran inside.

Nevermind the fact that half the employees and all the customers are actually sitting out front staring at the sky.

The place was crawling with 30 Future Farmers of America. Acting approximately how you might expect high schoolers to act.

(Wait, does not everyone have experience with the Future Farmers of America? Haha, oh Indiana.)

Long story short, the weather missed where I was but if I had kept driving I would have gone right through the path of some verrry nasty wind.

Longer story also shorter, when you are 24 and live with your daddy and call him in the "middle of the night" to panic, he will probably lose 10 years off his life. I probably owe him an iPad now?

And also, I'm grounded.

Self-imposed, but I totally deserve it.

If you need to get ahold of me I will be covertly sneaking onto AIM at 11 pm after my parents fall asleep. Oh wait, that was 10 years ago.

Thank you Miss Daisy for getting me home safely. xoxoxo.

Hope you are all safe and sound out there in the big wide world. Don't be stupid (like me)! xo

Wordless Wednesday: Spring?

And for the record, I didn't move the brick. Mother Nature moved the brick.

What is This?

All day yesterday was spent hearing people yap about "omg 7-9 inches" and snow snow snow snomg.

This is the current (7:30 am) view outside my bedroom window.

Snow my ass.

Call me when something actually happens, weather people.

And let me just say.. my high school canceled school for this. My BFF has the day off.

No fair!

Magical Fairyland

Last Friday, for the first time in 245 months, the sun shined in Indiana.

It. was. bananas.

Obviously I had to go outside and check out the madness.

Under an inch of ice was a perfect six or seven inches of snow. Absolutely perfectly preserved in ice.

In fact, I tromped all through the back yard and I didn't make a single footprint, even though there's an inch of snow on the ground.

In that (horrible) picture I'm standing on about a foot of snow. And I didn't sink an inch. CRAZY.

But the real reason I was so excited was because, under all that dazzling sunlight, it looked like somebody dumped a boatload of glitter on the world.

That picture doesn't nearly do it justice... but oh how the world sparkled.

Aand.... just to cap things off, we got a solid 7 inches of snow on Saturday morning. The weather channel was calling for 1 to 3 inches of flurries. We got 7. Not flurries, serious snowflakes.

Lemmie tell ya... if you've never been in a crazy unplowed mall parking lot on a Saturday... don't do it. It's life or death out there...

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And this, my friends, is how you kill a blog. By talking about weather twice in a week's time.

I'll try and do better next time.

How's the snowpocalypse in your neck of the woods??

Snowpocalypse Now. Or, Not.

Yesterday, it was predicted that we would get around 2 inches of ice and 12 inches of snow.

Yeah, not so much.

I went into work the evening shift at work... and was told we were closing at 1 pm. I was gone, from couch to couch, less than 2.5 hours. Woohoo!

It was icing like crazy yesterday though...
Aren't those little pellets cute? Totally make me want a snow cone.

Last night the wind was absolutely howling. The local news clocked 52 mph wind gusts in my hometown. BRR! We had several power surges here but fortunately the lines are buried in my half of my neighborhood... the above-ground lines had some problems last night! Yuck.

Fortunately, I was able to pop over to Target yesterday for provisions... I'll definitely survive my 2-hour delay this morning.
Yumm.

So... this is the current view outside my window.
The wind is howling louder than I can even convey.

So.

Think it could possibly be another snow day?

My fingers are crossed.

Ahem

How long has it been since I've written a coherent post?

A long time? Heh, you might have to wait one more day. Why is that?

Well, as you may recall from last week I travel through the country roads to get to my doctor.

And I have to go back early this morning, only we've got about 4 inches of snow on the ground so instead of taking my quick country route (in blue), I am forced to drive on the major highways, which takes me about 10 miles in the wrong direction.

See my awesome paint illustration below for a reference.
Blue=fast, green=sloow.

Glad we're on the same page.

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Yesterday, I ate my weight in heart-shaped cookie dough. (Recipe here.)
I kinda love that picture of the cookies. Would make a great header for my cooking blog.

You know, the one that I'm going to write in all of my spare time. Cause obviously I don't need to put in any more effort around here.
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Also, the gray nail polish manicure is still awesome. The only finger I've chipped is my left pointer finger. It chips no matter what I do. Obviously I need to stop pointing at things.
Go Sally Hansen!
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Gotta go dig out my car before I get dressed or I'll be soaking wet by the time I get anywhere.

How's the weather in your neck of the woods?

(PS I apologize for complaining about the snow to all of you who have two feet on the ground. Sorry! You totally have it worse than me!)

The Sun's Exploding

As I drove to the doctor yesterday morning, I was struck by the way the sun looked. It looked like it was exploding.


Keep in mind that these photos were taken from a (slowly! safety first!) moving car. Hence the blurry-ness.
Doesn't it look like the sun is just bursting out of it's... shell? I just couldn't stop staring. Or trying to drive on ice covered roads while taking pictures.

I also thought this could give you an appreciation of where I live. Surrounded by corn and soy-bean fields.

(Although, this is way further out of town than I live. Couldn't find a doctor I liked in town so I go to the neighboring village.)

(Hahaha village. I feel like next thing you know I'm going to be bartering for salt and flour.)

That's the world from Podunk, Indiana. How are things in your neck of the woods? Bitterly cold with a side of wind? (Oh, maybe that's just here...)

Snowpocalypse 2010

For the past few days, the local news has been hyping The Great Snow Storm of 2009. Last night they showed people at the grocery store buying French Toast Kits (eggs, bread, milk... apparently the necessities if you get snowed in).

This morning I woke up excited to see snow covering everything... and I saw grass. So apparently the snow is still coming... but I'm disappointed. I just want to see SNOW - like a real amount. I know it's a driving hazard and blah blah blah.... but I just wanted to wake up on a wintery morning to snow. Is that so much to ask? Apparently yes.

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So just this past week on Twitter somebody alerted me to Goodreads.com. And I'm kinda obsessed.

On Goodreads you can keep track of books you've read and also track the current books you're reading.

I know I haven't talked about it here in a while, but you all remember that I'm book obsessed, right?

This was the corner of the bedroom at my old house:
And that's not even all of them (although I have donated or sold most of them at this point... I just couldn't keep up!).

So I am hoping to share my favorite books this coming year on here... but if you're a bookaholic like I am, feel free to join me on Goodreads - I'd love to see what you're reading!!

And if you don't want to join Goodreads - tell me what you're reading. I'd love to know! I'm currently reading The Fixer Upper by Mary Kay Andrews and I am absolutely loving it! I'll probably finish it today while waiting for the snow to show up.

Happy Thursday everyone!

Falling Into Fall

First of all, thank you for all the awesome questions on yesterday's post. I am too sleepy to sort through them today but I'll start answering them first thing next week!

The leaves have been falling here for weeks and I've got the Halloween decorations up, but for some reason I haven't been feeling all that "fall-ish."

Last night, I finally got into the fall spirit. Thanks, in large part, to this large bowl of Apple Betty.

(Side Note: every time I say Apple Betty people give me this crazy eyed look and ask what the hell a Betty is. So I googled it for you. Apple Betty is crustless apple pie. So there. )

So I'll admit it - my favorite thing about fall is the food. And the scents (ie vanilla, pumpkin - homey scents).

What's your favorite thing about fall??

And remember that all of your comments today enter you to win The Middle Place. Giveaway ends Friday at midnight!

Today's birthday girl is Natalie, so go wish her a Happy Birthday, will ya?

Have a fabulous weekend!!

Happy April 6th! Or is it December 6th?

This is what I woke up to this morning. Seriously? An inch of snow on my car? In April? I give up!

On an unrelated note, I have been absent for a good reason... and I promise to try and get back into the swing of things very soon.

Happy Monday!

When It Snows it Pours

So remember on Tuesday when I was all like "OMG!! Snow!! Help - we're drowning here." Well, scratch that.

You see, my friends from home are coming to visit tomorrow. I was talking to my dad and thought maybe I should have them bring up a pair of my fake-Uggs because of the potential for snow. I finally ddecided it wasn't worth the hassle and just decided to wait until Thanksgiving for my boots. And then I woke up to this. Yep, folks, that's a solid 7 inches of snow piled on top of my car.

But WAIT, there's more. Says the weather channel:
Umm, snow squalls? What does that even mean?

So my friends will be driving up later today.... I think I'll go pray now for a safe trip.

Have a fabulous weekend everyone!

Edited to Add: Yes, I realize the picture I posted was rediculous.... I don't know what I'm smoking over here... but I kinda like it in a weird way. It stays.