I think the Mamas and the Papas had spent some time in Western Pennsylvania, because the sky here really is gray, has been for the last couple of days, but there are no brown leaves (at least that I've seen), but there is brown (dirty) snow.
The ice storm that came on Tuesday/Wednesday was rather vicious (although I do know that it could have been much worse and there are people who are less fortunate than I and they are suffering mightily in the cold). Driving was treacherous. A trek to work that normally takes me half an hour took me an hour and 20 minutes, and I saw two overturned vehicles and a fallen tree on the way in. The drive home wasn't much better, but there were no overturned vehicles and no fallen tree.
What you really don't get from the photos is the thick layer of ice/snow/schmultz that I'm driving on. Ugh.
I would have taken a picture of the 1/4 thick pieces of ice that we "picked" off of the car yesterday but I wasn't smart enough (and it was too cold) to pull out the camera while I was scraping the car off.
Here, though, is a picture of the trees along the road:
Excuse the quality of the photos, please, as it was gray (it is still gray).
(No lectures about picture taking while driving in the winter snow, either, mind you).
We were without power last night from about 6:15 until 11-ish or so. The family huddled under blankets and read, played battery-operated games or, in my case, knit by candlelight.
This morning, the car was covered again with snow, but it was a lovely fluffy bunch of flakes, nothing stuck together, so I whipped out the camera, played with the macro setting, and have these to show you:
Click to make 'em bigger. I personally love snow flakes and their intricate patterns. So cool.
I think this is the time of year that the gray is getting to everybody. People are more sensitive than normal, more touchy. People take things the wrong way and what was an innocent comment or observation often escalates to hurt feelings or even heated arguments. Lots of grouchiness all around, and I think it's because we've all got serious cases of cabin fever. I'm a generally happy person, but the strife and the strain and the generally crabby feeling really gets to me after a while. I de-Twittered, as Robin M. puts it - I turned it off and haven't been looking at it to see what is going on. I haven't looked at Facebook in ages (not that I did much on there anyway - I get annoyed with all those apps or whatever that people send you constantly)! Anyway, the crabbiness and the craziness sends me indoors and under the quilts and makes me not want to play. To that end, don't be surprised if I'm more quiet on the blog (not that I'm a frequent poster anyway) and in comments. I'll get out of the funk soon enough, but for now, I think I'm going to make like a bear and hibernate.



