Nothin' Much New, Poopy Weather

I'll be in grey tonight to match the weather. After that first, good snowfall that I wrote about, the temps dropped and it actually seemed like winter. Then, this past weekend happened. The mercury just rose and rose, and today it was raining. RAINING! In northern Minnesota in (almost) mid-December. Thank goodness there's no such thing as Global Warming! (Ah-hem). Anyway, as you can imagine, the snow is go, go, going, and the rain and right-at-freezing temperatures have made every surface treacherous. As my parents would say, "It's like an Illinois winter."

But, back-tracking a bit to when it was still winter . . . . Last Tuesday, the 5th, I headed down to Duluth to have the new 9' poly trip-edge plow (think "aar, aar, aar" Tim Allen style) mounted and installed on the plow truck. It was a bad day, weather-wise, and I saw accidents as I ran my errands (slowly and in 4-wheel drive) around town during the day. (Incidentally, not the best day to be driving a comp car from the plow shop, but, fortunately, they gave me a 4-wheel drive Isuzu with an already-bashed-in-front end.) Hoping to be back on the road home by 4:00 (5:00 tops), I waited. And waited. And waited.

FINALLY, at 9:00 PM (yes, 9:00 PM), the plow was finished. Of course, I now had a 3-hour drive (were it good conditions) ahead of me with a new, really, really heavy 9' wide contraption on the front of the truck . . . and it was snowing and icy again. By the time all the paperwork, etc. was done and in the less-than-stellar road conditions, I had gotten no further than Two Harbors by 10:00 (still 2 1/2 hours yet to go). So, I decided to call it a night and check into a motel. (See, I am getting wiser in my old age!)

Of course, then began the comedy sketch of trying to find a decent dinner in a medium-sized town at 10:00 at night. Three options failed, and I ended up at McDonald's with a wilted Asian salad (made that morning, I'm sure) and a 4-piece chicken McNuggets. Yum. (Not exactly what I'd been hoping for.) Anyway, the trip home was successfully made the next morning, and my first trial run with the plow (opening up and cleaning out my folks' driveway and yard) proved positive. Hey! Maybe THAT'S why we haven't had any new snow! It's kind of like washing your car to make it rain! We bought a new, super-duty plow, and we haven't had any snow since! Ah-ha!

Around here, I am trying to get somewhat organized (ha!) for Christmas. Tom has made great progress on the outlets, and we only have a handful left. Next, the light fixtures! With the snow came his last commute to work "the back way". That road is not maintained (plowed) in the winter, so he has to take the long way now. Even though it's double the mileage, it only takes him about 10 minutes more since 1/2 of it is on the highway and the rest is on "good" gravel roads.

Oh, one perk: in sorting through kitchen boxes tonight, I did find the silverware and my big cutting board! Still haven't found either of the damn cheese graters yet, tho!