Even More Snow!

Posted by Ivy

I know New England winters are far crazier than Missouri ones, but I haven’t been here through the entire season in six years and so forgot just how bonkers they can get. I’ve already blogged about the post-Christmas storm that messed up my friends’ travel plans, but December was, apparently, just a warm-up for the main event.

This January has been the snowiest month in Connecticut history. Not the snowiest January…the snowiest month. Ever. I haven’t been to the gym in months, but am nonetheless staying in shape because of my regular snow-shoveling regimen.

Last night the weathermen predicted 9-12 inches of snow overnight. My parents and I woke up at 6:45 this morning to find…eighteen inches of fluff (and fortunately, it was fluff, not the icy kind of snow) piled all around our house like a lumpy comforter.

Good morning!

There are a couple of problems posed by 18 inches of snow. The first one is that my parents had to go to work, forty minutes away in Hartford…but the car can’t get out of the garage with, well, *that* in the way. We’re also running out of places to put the snow- those piles off to the right in the above picture are the result of every other snowfall this month.

The second is that our dog O’Lio, while he is a pretty tall dog (he’s a greyhound), couldn’t ford his way through the piles on the back porch to get to our backyard and do his morning thing.

Fortunately, my parents’ office called to let everybody know they didn’t have to come in until noon, which gave us time to clear the driveway and free the car from the garage. Meanwhile, I tackled the back porch. Once I got to the bottom of the steps and the backyard, I dug out paths for O’Lio to use…it’s like his own private maze out there now. He’s happy.

I should point out that all of this shoveling was done before 9 a.m. After finishing, I immediately went back and curled up in bed for a few hours…until I had to go back out again in the afternoon to take care of the other side of the driveway.

Northeast Roamings: Let’s Hear It For New York

Posted by Ivy

David, Halley and I finished our tour of the Northeast in New York City, where we met up with some other friends from college for New Year’s Eve. Most of the day was actually spent going back and forth between our hotel, Manhattan, and Laguardia Airport in search of David’s suitcase, which the airline had lost a few days earlier. We still managed to fit in a short trip to the Met and Central Park, though.

Northeast Roamings: On the Freedom Trail

Posted by Ivy

It’s no big secret that I love Boston. David and Halley, my friends who came up to visit from Texas (and got delayed by the snow), already knew this, but had never actually been to the city with me; it was a ton of fun exploring all over with them. We kept ending up on the Freedom Trail, but then again, that’s not all that hard to do in Boston.

Kiddos going sledding in the Boston Common [cropped; I liked the panorama-style composition better even when taking it].

George Washington statue in the Public Garden.


Northeast Roamings: Snowy Rhode Island

Posted by Ivy

Last week, New England and New York got shellacked by a blizzard (this week, we again got ten inches of snow, with another few expected tomorrow. Hello, winter!). Normally this would not be a serious problem, and I would just hole up inside and read books and do nothing (and, indeed, I actually did do that)….but two of my friends from Texas were planning to come up and visit right about when all of the snow came, and they had to delay their flights by two days because of it. Argh. C’est la vie.

However, the blizzard did make for some good photo ops!

My cousin Lucy shoveling off her front porch in Pawtucket, R.I.

Aftermath the next morning.

Mainescapes

Posted by Ivy

I meant to post this first one when I took it just before Thanksgiving. The others were taken when I went back up to Maine a couple weeks ago for Christmas at my grandmother’s house.

Taken through the window at 6:20 a.m….when I had to wake up to take the dog outside. The blue light was great, though.