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It is the coldest it’s been here in 3 years, and that’s pretty friggin’ COLD!! I made it all the way to the city where I work without incident, and then got stuck in a 3 foot tall snow drift. I thought it was just soft snow and I drive a JEEP, so I won’t have a problem! WRONG! I got totally hung up on it, because it was hard as could be! Guess where I got stuck? In the Starbuck’s parking lot! Pfffft! Fortunately for me I just had a one block walk to get into the store. This Starbucks is within the grocery store (same chain my hubby manages a store with), so I knew the staff. Three of the men graciously offered to come out and try to push me out. It was hopeless, and we damn near froze. All that was exposed was my face, and it was just burning within seconds! We gave up, and went inside, where the store manager told me to leave my keys, and he’d get the snow plow that was coming to get me out. Thankfully they did that and all was good.

Obviously, with the frigid blizzard conditions, the school buses don’t run, but our schools are always open. Too many parents whined about child care when we used to close when the weather was severe, so now we stay open no matter what. That means, that staff has to risk driving from wherever they are, to come and babysit. We had ZERO children in our morning class, and two in the afternoon one. Ridiculous!

Then there’s the matter of my poor pups! They just about freeze their toes trying to go out to pee! I’ve got them in their sweaters, but they need boots bad! Wicket came running in yesterday on only his front feet! It was so silly, but I felt so bad for him!! Teebo is bigger, and tougher, but his solution is to pee, then he tries to lift one foot, then another, and then he finally gives up and just lays down in the snow, and then I have to go rescue him! Wicket held it ALL day until later last night!!

Yesterday was Ben’s 21st birthday, so we had to weather the cold and took the 4 kids out for dinner. We had a nice time, but no one in their right minds should be out in this shit! Which is why I called into work today, and said I was taking a “snow day”. If I’m just going to clean and organize, I could definitely stand to do some of that around here! I also need to bundle up and go attempt to clear that driveway off before we start getting stuck there too!

Miles Peeking out of his Hidey Hole

The weather here is GROSS! Today it’s -22C (-9F) and it’s snowing. Thursday’s drive home was NASTY! Probably the worst I’ve driven on. Before I left for work, it took me 15 minutes to sweep 8 inches of snow off my Jeep. The highway wasn’t really that bad at all, but when I was going through the industrial town I pass through on my way home, the intersections were ridiculous! I slid all the way through the first one, just inches from the guy in front of me before my ABS brakes saved my bacon. The next intersection, obviously I was wiser, so I stayed well back of the car in front of me, but the old man behind me, was not yet as wise, and he slid right into my rear end!! No visible damage though. When I got out to check, I could hardly stand up, it was so slippery, and polished from the wind. Fortunately the rest of the trip home was much less eventful!
The kids came out that night for dinner because it was Jay’s birthday. They didn’t stay too long, because Sarah had a soccer game. Yesterday it was just BEASTY cold! No more snow, but now today the snow is back. I believe these frigid temps are supposed to last for another 3-4 days. Yuck!
I’ve got Monday off work as well, so I’ve kind of been contemplating putting up some Christmas decorations. I’m not going to put up everything this year, as I’m sure that Stanley the little thief will be raising a ruckus in that tree! That Little Bastard is like a crow! He steals anything I happen to be too lazy to put away off my dresser. I find earrings all over! He also steals tubes of lipstick, and pens! It’s a good thing he’s so damn cute and cuddly!

It’s going to be gorgeous today! It would seem that for the time being, Spring has sprung.

The work week passed without any major events. I found Tyl*enol cold pills…. they kicked the crap out of my cough, so I’m feeling so much better now!

We have a really big decision to make in the next few days. It involves jobs, transfers and relocation. I’ll fill in the details once the decisions have been made. We haven’t said anything even to the kids or our families yet, so I’ll keep it zipped……for now.

The Oilers are in the playoff race for their lives, as are half the teams in the Western Conference! It’s crazy! Lose a game, their out of it, win a game and suddenly they’re in 6th place! They had games Thursday and Friday nights on TV. Of course, we watched both of them. We concluded that it’s so frickin’ stressful watching their games, that it’s very hard to “enjoy” the games!!! Thursday night, we scored a goal that went under review for approximately 2 minutes…. they ruled it no goal. In later review, it was shown that it was CLEARLY a goal! They apologized to the Oilers. Like that is going to get us into the playoffs. We ended up losing the game in the shootout, and got one point, instead of a much needed two! As if that wasn’t enough drama, last night, in the overtime period (yes again… with the stress), we had another goal that went under review. This time they concluded it was NO GOAL…. again!!! This one they said you couldn’t see the puck because it’s under the goalies glove. Well the glove was clearly in the net, so where the fuck does that put the puck???? Thankfully two seconds later, we scored the winning goal, so no damage was ultimately done this time! For once… could we just kick somebody’s ass??!!!

Edmonton News - Snow and snow clearing by the numbers:

Shovelling out

- Between 20 and 25 cm of snow fell between late Friday and Saturday evening, when the flurries tapered off.

- That virtually ties the record snowfall for a single day in March, when 23 cm fell at City Centre Airport on March 11, 1982.

- Record snowfall at International Airport for a single day in March was 21.1 cm, set March 13, 1974 .

(Source: Environment Canada)

- Plows and graders clear snow from Saturday’s dump - the equivalent of roughly 200,000 driveways.

Look at this weather!!! I went out to run errands yesterday just wearing a shirt and slacks! No coat required! Of course, I’m always too warm, but this is unreal! I’ve nearly finished the laundry, I swiffered all the hardwood, emptied garbages, cleaned the bathrooms, and I’m soon going to hop in the shower and then pack.We’re not hurrying too much, and will just kind of take our time going out.

This is what our parking lot at school looked like at lunch when I went out to run some errands. Yuck! Horrible shit!

Fuck a Duck! It snowed last night. Uggghhh! That makes a Monday even UGLIER than normal!

Well who knew??

EDMONTON - The next time you frost your eyebrows and lose all feeling in your cheeks while scraping ice off your windshield during a raging winter blizzard, remember — Alberta has the most comfortable weather in the country…..…read story….

Normally I would tend to completely agree with this. Most residents of BC were shocked, as they have so much warmer weather, and milder winters, but in some of my visits to certain areas of BC, it’s so cloudy and drizzly that I’d be a depressed bag of rags living in that climate. Otherwise I’d totally love to retire there. Manitoba has horrid winters. Ontario is way too hot and humid for me. I guess we don’t get the freezing rain near as often either. We’ve just had an exceptionally wet and cold summer this year, following 3 years of drought, an infestation of west nile virus carrying misquitoes last year, and a crazed crew of yellow jacket wasps this year, but heh. I guess it’s all good!

It was 40 degrees when I woke up this morning! It’s finally warmed up to a balmy 45 degrees now. It sure seems like everyone is getting very strange weather this summer. We have had a very cool, wet summer, and other people are completely melting!

Does anyone have a goat we can borrow for a week or two?? Our lawn mower has been in the shop for 2 weeks now, and the grass is getting rather LONG!! As much grass as the cats go out and eat and yak up, they just aren’t keeping up!

Geeze! Do you THINK we oculd have summer?? Sheesh! It’s 48 degrees today, windy, and pouring rain. Totally cold and miserable. Most of my “jobs” for the day were going to be outside, working on my table set, so that’s been put on hold. So I’m just being lazy. I finally threw in a load of laundry, so I could at least say I did SOMETHING!

Hubby and Sarah are working, and Ben’s off with Jess, so it’s just Patches, the cats, me and the RAIN!