The weather outside is frightful

After we got engaged and knew I would be moving to D.C., I was told by everyone I knew who was from Virginia or who'd lived in the D.C. area that it got really cold but really didn't snow too much up here.  They said I'd need at least one good, thick coat but not to worry about it.  They said it snowed a few times each winter and that it wouldn't stick for very long.  They.  The proverbial they.  Well, newsflash: apparently they, who know so much, lied.  They didn't know anything.  We are woke up this morning and found roughly 8-ish inches of snow on the ground (totally a guesstimate based on the fact that you can't see any sort of differentiation in our yard between grass and sidewalk, or where the steps at the street are) and we are currently in the middle of a blizzard watch.  The snowfall hasn't let up yet; when I woke up at 10:45 (yes, I slept til 10:45.  I took NyQuil last night because I'm trying to kick a cold before it gets to me) the snow looked like it does in Texas when it snows: tiny, tiny "flakes" falling/ swirling around, only at a MUCH faster rate than what I've ever seen in Texas.  An hour and a half later, we've seen what I can only describe as huge clouds of snow dust blow through from time to time that reduce your visibility to the point where we can't see the house across the street.  Seriously, if anyone was at that ACL festival in 2005 when it was SUPER dusty, imagine that but instead of a dirty brown color, it's white.   

This is a view out our big window in the living room (it's to the left of the fireplace in the Christmas pics):

This is the view of the front yard from the windows at the top of our front door:

View of the backyard from the kitchen window:

And to drive the point home of how much snow had fallen overnight, here's a close up of the amount of snow in the chairs:

Once I have the courage to brave bundling up and trekking out in the cold, I'll take a pic of the house from the street view.  Not looking like that will happen anytime soon, though... I'm a wimp and it's too cold! 

I do love how severe weather makes people flip out.  Back in '05 when the weathermen swore up and down that Rita was coming and that it had the potential to be just as strong as Katrina or worse, Austinites went crazy.  I remember going to HEB after work to pick up some groceries and it was a total zoo.  The water aisle was completely cleaned out- not even dust on the shelves.  The canned food aisle was in the same shape, save one lonely, dented can on the floor in the corner.  And this was in Austin, which had zero chance of facing the same fate as New Orleans.  We were hundreds of miles from the coast and well above sea level; you might even go so far as to call it the hill country... oh wait, it's commonly called that.  What happened?  Not a drop of rain fell and it was some of the pretties weather we'd had all summer.  Last night I went to Safeway to get some Duraflame logs and I should have known better.  The parking lot was a madhouse.  I walked inside and every line was halfway down the aisles of food.  There was plenty of canned food left, but no water and zero Duraflame logs.  L ended up buying some water for us (which was nice but I still think it was unnecessary) and was successful in purchasing some logs.  I wanted to him to get the multicolor kind but he just bought the boring regular kind.  (Side note: did Duraflame really need a gimmick to sell more logs?  I mean it worked for me- I totally wanted to see what "multicolor" really means- but is that really necessary?) 

I watched the weather this morning for the first hour that I was up and everyone is FREAKING OUT.  One guy in the field was saying that this is a huge natural disaster and that anyone going out in is RISKING THEIR LIVES!!!  Now, to be fair, we did just read on CNN that 3 people have died as a result of freezing in the cars and there is an area of Virginia where people don't have power.  I'm not sure that warrants elevating this to natural disaster level, though, because freezing in your car could theoretically happen anywhere that gets really cold temperatures in the winter and power outtages can happen in any kind of weather.  Also, I'm pretty sure that calling a snow storm a natural disaster when so few have died, the city is not at risk of being destroyed, etc., is an insult to New Orleans and Katrina survivors, or even Galveston/ Ike survivors.  Or to anyone who actually really has lived through any other kind of natural disaster.  Pretty much anyone who's been forced to live through something where FEMA had to come in.  Really all we need right now is more snow plows and warmer temperatures.  Not federal funding.

L is anxious to get out and play in the snow.  I'll update more throughout the weekend!