blizzard of 2015?

Current prediction is 10-15 inches of snow for this area, along with gusty winds past 30 mph. It's going to be a long term event, starting tonight and going on through Monday morning.

TAKE IT SERIOUSLY. If you absolutely have to go somewhere, do all the things you should be doing anyway: Have your car stocked with food, water, abrasives, blankets, a snow shovel, medications, and a charged cell phone. Remember, most snow plows and emergency vehicles are NOT four wheel drive, and it will get bad enough that even four wheel drives won't be able to get through. Last winter it was common to have 4X4's stuck in snowdrifts. Wreckers are not going to come out when it's that bad, and snow plows will not run 24/7, especially when roads drift shut as fast as they can open them. Hopefully the county commissioners will declare a snow emergency early, but if they don't--your job is not as important as your life.

Wherever you are, work or home, have enough provisions to last a few days, at least. Be extremely careful--fire trucks and ambulances might not be able to get to you. Remember that after the storm it's going to get very cold, with dangerous wind chills.

Fifty Authors from Fifty States: Bluebirds, Lush Valleys and Folk of Arkansas with ...

Writing in the Ozarks ...



Fifty Authors from Fifty States: Bluebirds, Lush Valleys and Folk of Arkansas with ...: Back in 1978 the state of Arkansas turned this

dmyates Believe in Yourself: Developing a Character With That Midwest Attitude

That Midwest attitude ...



dmyates Believe in Yourself: Developing a Character With That Midwest Attitude: A few years ago, we purchased our prescriptions from a pharmacy located inside a grocery store. One day, we were the next in line. As the cu...

Speak of the Devil: The Angry Korean Hobbit Meets His Doom

 "We will burn their childhood toys and infest them with whipping cream!”

 

Speak of the Devil: The Angry Korean Hobbit Meets His Doom: Some links before we get started today. Yesterday having had been a Sunday, we had a  Snippet Sunday  post at our joint blog. Krisztina ha...

A Cylon Dog?

When it was time to get up the other day, Emily sent the dog upstairs to wake me. When Bae wouldn’t go through the door, she texted me a photo of him waiting outside the bedroom.

 

 Not only did I not come out, I bolted the door and hid in the closet.

Storm Chaser On Review

A new review has been posted of Storm Chaser!

http://authorstowatch.com/2015/01/14/storm-chaser-book-review/

Since I’m posting a link to it, it’s probably not a bad review …

Sicking together

Since it's important to share things as a family, Emily and I have decided to share a sinus infection. We're even sharing an antibiotic. Isn't that romantic?

Except that aforementioned antibiotic is NOT agreeing with me. Very bad day yesterday, up today even though I'm not working. I'm starting to think it would be nice to just keep the sinus infection. I get them so often, it gets lonely without the pain and pressure.

Speak of the Devil: A Day In The Life Of A Cat

"Well there you are, staff. How about we get ourselves started on breakfast?"



Speak of the Devil: A Day In The Life Of A Cat: Before we get started today, some links to see to. Yesterday having had been a Sunday, we had a  Snippet Sunday  post. Norma had  turn of ...

Speak of the Devil: A Day In The Life Of A Dog

"Human, are you aware that raccoons don't actually talk English?"



Speak of the Devil: A Day In The Life Of A Dog: Some links before I get started today. Norma had  a passage  at her Wordpress blog. Yesterday having had been a Friday, Parsnip had a  Squ...

Fifty Authors from Fifty States: Alaska: Jim Misko Says There’s So Much Good To Sa...

Fifty Authors from Fifty States: Alaska: Jim Misko Says There’s So Much Good To Sa...: Everyone wants to come to Alaska. They’ve heard about it, talked about it, questioned if it’s always dark or always cold and do the bea...

How I Ruined Winter … For Almost Everyone

SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK

I love January! Said no one, ever.

Okay, some people actually do love winter, which just goes to show you: Northern Indiana needs better mental health screening. I used to take part in winter activities, but I was young then, and young people just haven’t learned that being miserable isn’t an adventure.

When I was a kid, I loved sledding, snowball fights, and not having to pay the utility bills. Well, I liked them … I never did warm up all that much to winter. Then, one day when I was about fourteen, I came in from building a snow block fort to discover my hands and toes had themselves become snow blocks. My cheeks had taken on a white, Frosty-like sheen.

My face cheeks. Get your mind out of my insulated underwear.

Thawing out involved a process not unlike being stabbed with a thousand white-hot pins and needles, and from that time on I couldn’t stay in cold weather for long before the affected parts started to feel like they’d been shotgunned full of rock salt. It took all the fun out of it.

Today, my favorite wintertime activities involve a book and a cup of hot chocolate. So January does have an advantage: I can catch up on my reading. But that doesn’t really make up for the gas bill.

Last year, here in Indiana, we had a return to real Indiana winters. You know, the kind of stuff that leads on The Weather Channel. The kind of weather only snow plow drivers and ice fisherman like, and see above about mental health. For many previous years, our weather has largely just been miserable, instead of awful. But now we’ve returned to the kind of weather that led to the sale of T-shirts proclaiming “I survived the Blizzard of ‘78” … and if you had one of those shirts, you know “survived” wasn’t an exaggeration.

So the big question people have today is, will this winter be as bad as last winter?

Yes.

Now, this is my January column, but because of other deadlines I’m writing this early—way early. It’s December 3^rd, and at the moment it’s a balmy thirty degrees and technically late fall. We’ve only had one snowstorm, so far. By the time you read this it will be mid to late January, so you’ll know whether my prediction is correct, or whether I’m blowing cold air.

I will be right, and I know this because it will be my fault.

Several weeks ago, I opened my garage door to take out the lawn mower. I know, hard to imagine mowing the lawn now, isn’t it? At the moment you’re looking at a field of white, or a sea of icy brown, dead grass in between snowstorms. But there was a time when things were green and I was out in it, enjoying my allergies.

Okay, “enjoying” might be a stretch, but I’d rather have hay fever than frostbite.

Now, a note about my garage: It’s old. As in, originally a carriage house old, with a hay loft above it. At some point it was turned into a garage big enough for, say, three quarters of a car, and I assume it was at that point that the garage door was installed. At some point after that, but before I moved in, the roof burned off. Somebody nailed tin sheets over the charred rafters.

In short, my garage has been through a lot.

Just the same, I could still park the car inside during bad weather, as long as I let the passenger side brush up against the wall so I had enough room to squeeze out of the driver’s side.

Or at least, I could park inside until the moment I started to pull the garage door shut, and the springs broke.

Suddenly, instead of me shutting the door, the door shut me. I was slammed onto the concrete at just over the speed of sound, which fortunately kept me from hearing my high pitched screech. Eventually I crawled into the house, where I decided I was done mowing for the year.

Not long after that I lost my part time job, which meant I didn’t have the money to repair the afore-mentioned door. Now, add that to the fact that I haven’t had time to winterize the house this year—winterizing in this case means putting plastic over every window, pumping caulk into every other opening, and cleaning the garage so the car can fit in. That last would have been a wasted effort, as it turns out.

In other words, I am more completely unprepared for winter than I’ve been at any point in my adult life. And that, dear readers, covers at least two or three Murphy’s Laws, guaranteeing that we are going to have one of the coldest, snowiest winters since the early eighties.

You’re welcome, snow plow drivers and ice fishermen. Make sure to wear gloves.

Caption: My garage in better days … well, before I got a better car, anyway. Notice the door is already tired.

Intangible Hearts: My Opinion: 5 Blogging Rules

Abraham Lincoln would have been a great blogger.



Intangible Hearts: My Opinion: 5 Blogging Rules: Every once in awhile, I’ll read some article about how to blog or how to never blog or things you should blog about and things you should...

Speak of the Devil: The Wedding Of The Millennium

I'm still mad at her for ruining one of my favorite book series.



Speak of the Devil: The Wedding Of The Millennium: Some links before we get going. Yesterday having had been a Sunday, we had a  Snippet Sunday  post at our joint blog. Krisztina had her  J...

Working on a photo finish

I won't be blogging steadily before February, due to the upcoming deadline for Images of America: Albion and Noble County. Emily is still scanning photos, I'm working on captions and research, and we still have some people to contact about getting more old historical photos for the project.

I'm doing pretty good on Albion pictures at this point, and casting the net out for old photos from other communities, large and small, as well as special places, events, and such. My plan is to have the whole thing done by the end of January, a week ahead of deadline--in case I screw something up. So, busy busy ... but it's not like I have any desire to do outdoor stuff in January.