It’s been a crazy couple of days. That will happen when a massive winter storm is predicted to arrive just as the biggest holiday of the year arrives.
M and C finished finals Tuesday. They seemed pleased with their performances. We’ll find out in a few weeks.
L wrapped up school Wednesday. It was pretty much a useless week, as all tests and assignments were completed last week. She cracked me up by wearing a Santa hat to school each day, then again when we went to the gym on Tuesday.
I have been to grocery stories 150 times this week. OK, that’s not true.
I did the normal weekly shopping on Monday.
Tuesday I stopped into a store right after dropping off L to try to get a bunch of stuff for the holiday weekend before the storm-induced panic buying began. I made a decent dent in that list.
Wednesday was my big shopping day. I dropped L off at school and had a window of 8–8:30 to pick up our ham. So I popped into the store next to the ham place to see how well they were stocked. Turned out they were not stocked well but I did get a few things before it was Ham Time.
Next it was onto another big grocery store that was very well stocked. I got 90% of what I still needed there.
On the way home I wanted to stop at a liquor store, but it didn’t open for another 15 minutes, so I ran into the grocery store next to it to work on that last 10%, and maybe avoid a trip to Costco.
I was unable to avoid the Costco trip so after taking C to ortho, we headed that way. When we arrived, at about 11:15, the parking lot was packed and there were literally dozens of people parked on the grass. I told C if it was really this crazy we were going to skip it. But we went down one aisle, immediately had three parking spots to choose from, and headed in. We just needed a few things, but the checkout lines were backed up through the entire store. I made sure to get into the one targeted for the self-check machines and we were out in 15 minutes.
Then Thursday morning I ran to our neighborhood store for a few more things.
So that’s six stops at grocery stores, plus Costco, liquor, and ham.
Ridiculous but had to be done as I think the entire city is going to shut down tonight into Saturday morning between the snow, wind, and cold. The windchill here is forecast to be 25 to 35 below zero Friday morning. That’s no good for anyone, especially people making last-minute grocery runs.
The girls are currently off having their annual Christmas breakfast/cookie-baking party with their grandmother. S is normally home on Thursdays but has to run into the office to help see some patients that were re-scheduled from Friday. Once everyone is home we’re going to hunker down, crank the heat up, and hope the power lines in our part of town survive the winds until our first family gathering Saturday evening.
I’ve enjoyed watching the forecast adjust over the past week. As with any winter storm there is all kinds of uncertainty. The weather app I use on my phone, Hello Weather, has a cool feature that allows you to pick between one of eight different sources for forecast information. In the winter I love toggling between them, as some make a very conservative calculation and others take the worst-case option. Last Sunday, when this storm first got pulled into the seven-day view, these forecasts varied from a prediction of two inches of snow to 22 inches. That’s quite a range! As it stands now, we are in the 3”–6” window, and it’s starting to look like the lower half is more likely.
Regardless, it appears that this will be our first truly white Christmas in at least four years. And that one was just because of a dusting of snow on Christmas morning.
I know this storm is affecting most of my readers, so I hope all of you get through it safely, with heat and power, and that you are able to make all the gatherings on your calendar.