March Snow

It's been almost 2 weeks since we've seen the ground due to about 6" of snowfall and frigid temperatures ever since. This has been the view from the front porch for the last couple of weeks.

Yesterday got to a balmy 59 degrees and we got a couple of inches of rain, which melted most of the snow off and started quite a bit of flooding in certain areas. Our pond is about to overflow. It was kind of cool watching the snow on the ground steam as it dissipated.

So this morning, this was the view from the front porch - we can see the ground again! Yay!

BUT wait! There's more!  This is what we are in store for tonight.  (We are in the pink area.)

Can I cry now?  I just want spring. I want to go camping. I want to porch dwell. I want flip flops and sun. *sob*  Daylight savings starts this weekend at least.  That's a start.

Update: I'd guess there is approximately a foot of snow on the ground. We had a lot of blowing snow, but the outside table looks like it's holding about a foot on the flat surface.  It's a good thing snow is pretty.  But it can melt now.

60 Degrees in February

Today was BEAUTIFUL! The sun was out, the birds were chirping, the snow was all melted and it was a bit over 60 warm degrees! After doing some shopping I took advantage of the warm afternoon sun on the back upper deck to do some reading with a cold beverage.  The dogs joined me and enjoyed sunning on the warm deck boards.  Spring is on the way!  Though I know this is the usual end of winter tease...more snow and cold is on the way next week...but for now, I'll take what I can get!

Storms Rolling In

We finally got a nice break from the snow and cold and actually got some thunderstorms!  It was very nice for a change, plus I love thunderstorms ( as long as they don't get out of hand ).  It almost got warm enough to melt off all the snow.  But between melting snow and rain, the yard is a soggy mess.  And due to 12 dog paws, my floors are a dirty mess!  But if it means warmer weather is on the way, I'll take it!

Icy

This sure has been a doozy of a winter.  The ground has pretty much looked like this since mid-December. I know we are overdue for it given the last two winters that were unseasonably mild, but I'm so over it.  We're just now into February and have had not one, but two, polar vortexes come through - a term I honestly had never even heard of until a couple of months ago.  We have had three snow "events" this week alone and it is almost continuously flurring snow flakes.  It's pretty and all, but I really hate the cold and I am really, really ready for camping weather since we only got to take the new rig out once before having to winterize it.  I don't think I've ever been so ready for spring in my entire life...42 more days...

So Far Just Rain

A winter storm was supposed to come in, but most of it ended up being just rain, thank goodness.  We got quite a bit of rain before the cold came in and changed it over to snow, giving us just a slight 1" dusting overnight.  However, the cold that came in with the system is horrible!  We woke up to -1 degree F temperatures this morning with -25 degree windchill - brrrrrr!  Jason couldn't even get his truck started and my truck doors were frozen shut.  Luckily I didn't have to go anywhere today...I'll be parked in the house in my fleece PJ pants in the home office.  My old hometown in Indy has over a foot of snow as of this morning so I've been watching them dig out and post photos via Facebook this morning.  Stay warm!

Storm Rolling Through

This is what the view from the loft looked like this afternoon as a storm quickly passed through.  It wasn't quite as dark as the photo depicts, but it's not far off!

Hot Tubbin' & Snow - 9/52

Saturday I had five girlfriends over for a "big girl slumber party". We had a fantastic time - we ate good food, played some Wii dance, had a craft session in the craft loft and spent the majority of the evening soaking and chit-chatting in the hot tub.  This is the view from the hot tub in the daylight. I can't wait until the leaves on the trees start coming back.

After our 70 degree day on Friday, this is what we woke up to this morning - boo!  Pretty, but BOO!  But tomorrow is supposed to be in the 60's so that's ok.

Snowy Morning - 6/52

Another Kentucky snowy morning, barely. It was gone an hour later.  We've had very little snow this year and most of our days have been in the 50's.  I'm not complaining a bit!

Stormy Summer Sunset

As three rounds of tornado producing storms were passing through, they sky was beautiful just at sunset!  This is typical for spring to early summer in Kentucky.  Luckily, we didn't have any damage.

More Bad Weather on the Way

What is with the weather around here this year?  Two weeks ago we had highs of 12 degrees and a massive ice storm that took out power to most of the city.  This week it's been in the 60's and wonderfully warm - very rare for February in Kentucky.  And now tonight and tomorrow we're expecting strong thunderstorms with high winds and gusts ranging up to 60mph, which in turn has the weather folks heading warnings of the following:

The recent ice storm has left many trees in a weakened state with many large...loose hanging branches. These strong winds may result in new power outages for some areas and may result in minor property damage. Given the rains and soft ground conditions... these winds may be strong enough to blow down whole trees.

I just hope we manage to keep our power this time.  At least we have the generator ready and this time a kerosene heater in case the house gets too chilly.  We shall see what happens.  At least the sideways rain will help wash some of the salt off of my truck!  :D

Power Back Up and Running

We finally got power back this afternoon.  Normally the power being out for a while doesn't bother me, but when the power, and thus heat and hot water, goes away on days where the high temp is still below freezing isn't my idea of a good time.  All I can say is, thank goodness for generators!  We had several  friends and family members offer to take us in for the duration, but with three unruly dogs, one cantankerous cat, three mice, one evil rabbit and two beta fish we figured we were better off staying put.

We settled in for the long haul by hooking up the generator under the back porch (to lessen the noise) and running extension cords up through the deck and into the kitchen window, which we then sealed off with masking tape and plastic.  We have a 5000 watt generator so we were able to run both fridge's, the freezer, the tv, the Wii, two laptops, two lights, one space heater and a few other things as needed.  One little space heater wasn't going to cut it for the entire house, so we settled into the living room and put plastic up over the doorway leading to the rest of the house.  It worked brilliantly!  The  living room stayed at a nice 65 degrees while the rest of the main floor was around 50 degrees and the upstairs bedroms around 42 degrees.  We still slept in the bedroom and kept really warm up there due to our awesome bed and mattress.  The issue was getting out of bed in the morning...brrr...talk about a wake up call!

Wednesday wasn't too bad.  We had only generator power, but we still had our cable modem for Internet usage.  By the time we woke up Thursday morning the cable was out as well.  So no tv and no Internet.  Luckily the TiVo was hooked up so we had tons of stuff to watch. But there is only so much tv one can watch in a day.  And no Internet - gasp!  What did we do before Internet?!  I thought I was going to lose my mind.  I was actually excited to get back to work!  Luckily the power came back on about 2 hours before I got home from work today so it was already almost back up to normal temp...and I got to take a shower!  Ahhh clean and warm.  Life is good.

Brrrr!

So we got this nice ice storm yesterday and we were doing pretty good until this morning.  At 9:45am our power went out.  It is now after 10:30pm and still no power.  Worse yet, the word is it could be 7 - 10 days before they get it restored due to the 475,000 homes without power.  All I can say is thank goodness for generators!  We sectioned off the main living room from the rest of the house with plastic over the door to the kitchen (and thus the rest of the house) and powered the living room for the lights, tv, laptops and a space heater.  The plastic is keeping the heat in the room - though the rest of the house is freezing!  I think I'll be sleeping on the couch tonight for the sake of my appendages staying intact.

Our office closed today, but I'm sure we'll be back in business tomorrow.  At least there I can get warm, assuming I can make it out of my driveway.

A branch of the maple tree in our front yard - this is pretty much what all of our surrounds look like, with an inch of snow on top:

Yup, Snow!

Wow, it actually happened!  We got about 4" of snow.  We're now getting a nice layer of ice before the next 4" comes in.  Got out of work at 2:00 today, too!  Happy birthday to me!  :D

The sparkly view from my front porch while waiting for my truck to thaw out this morning:

Got Snow?

Looks like we will after tonight - possibly 10 inches of snow and ice by Tuesday evening for the Kentuckiana area.  I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Spring in January

Welcome to Kentucky - where if you don't like the weather, just stick around for a few days, it'll
change!  Here it is, the beginning of January when it's usually beginning to hit the bitterly cold temperatures, and I'm sitting on the screened in porch with my laptop,  in my pj's, drinking coffee, blogging and listening the birds chirping like it's a nice spring morning.  At 9:00 am it was 59 degrees.  The only thing keeping it from being warmer is the overcast skies that will bring in the thunderstorms later this afternoon.

The dogs are getting a kick out of it, too.  When it's nice like this we leave the back door open so they can come in and out as they please.  I think they spend a lot of the day going in and out just because they can!

Yup, my kind of weather.  Anything to be outside and I'm happy!  So if you're in the Kentuckiana area, get outside and enjoy because snow is in the forecast for Wednesday!

Ike Came to Kentucky

Ike decided to make a pit stop in Kentucky yesterday to cause some mischief. The day started out pretty windy in general. Jason and I left around noon to go grab some lunch and go grocery shopping. By the time we were headed home around 1:30 the winds had picked up drastically. By 2:00 tree branches were snapping, power was flickering and debris was flying everywhere in 75mph winds. We lost an entire side of screen on the porch, a dead tree fell on the fence - luckily it was a small one so no damage, and our turbine on the roof was knocked askew. We fared much better than our neighbors who lost shingles and window/roof trim and larger trees.

The weirdness of it all was other than the crazy wind it was a beautiful day. Sunny with a few clouds, warm but not too humid. Some of the neighborhood kids were standing on skateboards and using an empty pizza box as a wind sail to whip them down the street. Pretty ingenious!

So today 70% of the Louisville area is without power. We're one of the lucky ones that still have power and internet off and on, though our cell phone service is not working unless we drive to the beginning of our street - we don't have a land line. The last time this happened they took our power grid down during the process of fixing the others and we ended up without power for 3 days. Hopefully that doesn't happen again. Due to the extent of outages I'm also off of work today. They fired up the data center on the generator, but kept the main building down and most employees home. So a nice, unexpected day off.

I haven't been out with the camera, but lots of photos can be found through our local newspaper.

August in Kentucky?

Not that I'm complaining, but it's weird!

Loooong Weekend!

Ahhh finally!  A nice long weekend!  With Monday being Memorial Day and a work holiday for me I decided to go ahead and take Friday off as well, even though we only work until noon.  I have lots of vacation time to use up and it's another day to sleep in.  PLUS I have to finish getting my house cleaned up because Jami & Larry, my dear friends from Indy, are coming to visit for the weekend!  *happy dance*  They visit every Memorial Day weekend and we always have a blast.  This year we are all heading to Mammoth Cave on Saturday with our local friends, John & Jenn to take a cave tour, then back to the house to grill out some dinner and hang on the back porch.  

This brings to mind several years ago when Jami and Larry visited.  We had a rather large party that weekend.  The next day as they were getting ready to head home a nasty storm came through, tornado warnings and all.  So we're sitting out on the front porch watching them roll in with our neighbors when all of a sudden in the field across the street what seemed to be smoke appeared.  What we thought was smoke turned out to be a tornado forming.   Jason, Larry and Tom, being the "brave" boys they are, decided to run out to the field to check it out.  As soon as they got about half way to it they abruptly turned right around and started hauling ass back home, waving frantically and yelling for us to all get into the basement.  Turns out once they crested the hill of the field there was not one tornado, but two heading our way.   So down to the basement we go - 4 adults, 2 teenagers, 3 dogs, 6 rats, 1 rabbit.  Lucky for us the tornados were fairly small and popped back up into the air before they could cause damage...though they did touch down again in the neighborhood behind us.

As if that wasn't enough Kentucky excitement for Jami & Larry, on their way home just 30 minutes from their house bad storms were moving through the Indianapolis area.  Once again they had to flee to cover when a tornado came barreling down the interstate towards them!  So now we are always sure to check the weather closely before they come and visit.  My fear is this year John will be with us also...which brings about a whole other realm of stories for another time!  ;)

Snow! And an Elbow Update

It's snowing! And not just the piddly little 1 -2 inches we usually get either! The current prediction is 8 - 12 inches by tomorrow morning for us here in the Louisville area. This started out as 3 - 4 inches and has been growing steadily. I generally don't like the cold or the snow, but to get this much makes me peek out the window every 5 minutes like a giddy little girl. The photography opportunities alone are enough to push me over the edge! With any luck I'll have some new winter shots up on my Flickr account in the very near future! And this gives me a chance to try out the new truck in inclement weather as well. ;)

In other updates, my elbow is on the mend. Further x-rays revealed that I have a small chip of bone floating around in my elbow area, but nothing to be concerned about. The doc said it is likely due to a tendon or ligament catching on the edge of the fracture and snapping off a piece of the bone during impact. The fracture is healing well and I was able to remove the sling on Monday and started physical therapy two days a week. It's amazing how quickly an appendage forgets how to work properly with just a month of immobility. One of my PT tasks was to pick up a pile of pennies and beads with my left hand and once I had a handful to put them into a container. Surprisingly it took me almost 5 minutes to fill up half a cup the size of a single serving yogurt container.

I'm happy to say that I have made progress through the week and can almost type normally now, can button my pants and can grip and hold objects that are lighter than 5 pounds. I still can't bend or extend my left arm all the way, nor can I turn it as much as I should be able to, but I should regain all of those movements within the next 4 weeks of physical therapy. Hopefully I've regained enough movement to easily operate my camera this weekend!

Winter Sucks

I hate winter. I really, really hate winter. I hate winter in Kentucky specifically. It's cold, it's gloomy and depressing. The ground is always mushy, which results in three sets of dirty dog prints throughout the house for three months straight and an irrate cat that tries to sneak into the house any chance he gets. One day it's sunny and 50 degrees and the next it's dreary, windy, cold and in the midst of an ice storm. Not to mention the tornados we had 6 miles from my house on Tuesday night. I mean really, tornados in January? What the heck is going on around here anyway?

So here I am on a Thursday afternoon, getting out of work in less than an hour. I was supposed to meet my friend Jenn for an evening out, to get away from it all for a few hours (which very rarely happens). But no, now we're waiting for 1/4" of ice and sleet and an inch of snow tonight. If it was just snow, meh, fine, I have 4 x 4. But ice - nope, not gonna risk it. I, being the weenie that I am, do not want to be stuck out on the slick roads in my new truck for just any moron to come flying by and hit me or push me into a ditch. Of course now that I have cancelled my plans the weather will "take a sudden turn" and do nothing but spit a little rain and move along - it never fails.

Luckily tomorrow is Friday and the work week has flown by. Thank goodness for the little things.