So what you see there is a close up of a snow flake and ice crystals. If you were to somehow cut and paste that photo all over a map of my hometown, you'd have a pretty clear representation of what the hell is coming.

It rained HARD last night. Lightening, thunder, lots of rain. Somewhere in the wee hours of the morning, it turned to ice. I woke this morning to see icicles hanging off of everything. Everything. And it's just getting started. B spent 20 minutes scraping the ice off the truck only to have his door freeze open, yes, OPEN while getting ready for work.

It's supposed to continue to rain and freeze all day, ending in a few inches of solid, clear, slick ice. But when that's done, it's going to start snowing. And snowing. And snowing. We might have 14 inches of snow on top of all that ice (I've also heard that 14 inches is a "conservative estimate.")

It reminds me of January 1995 when 19 inches of snow fell here overnight. I was a freshmen in college and classes were cancelled for the first time since 1973. The city didn't really know what to do with all that snow downtown, so they piled it up in the middle of the street. You could drive down Broadway and not be able to see the cars going in the opposite direction because the snow was piled up between the lanes. It stayed there until the end of March. There were sledding hills in the mall parking lot - just snow piled up because there was nowhere for it to go.

Then in January of 1998, we got hit by an ice storm. It was so bizarre, nothing looked icy at all. AT ALL. But take one step out your front door and you fell on your ass because of the ice. Everything shut down then.

I'm so grateful that we have a warm house, a new roof, a house full of healthy warm foods, untold numbers of wool hats and scarves and mittens to keep us warm (and once again I'm grateful for my ability to knit.) Today will be tv, knitting, soup in the crock pot, home made cinnamon rolls, and fuzzy house slippers. Tomorrow will be snowmen and snow angels and sledding and hot chocolate. The only thing I don't have is some bourbon for hot toddies. Eh, well, there are much worse things.

Bring it on, Mother Nature. I'm ready to be snowed in for awhile.