Spring Has Sprung? Really?

Well that was interesting. Nothing like a spring blizzard to turn ones life upside down exciting. The city was that far from declaring a state of emergency. (Imagine me pinching my thumb and forefinger together with barely any space in between.) It started snowing Tuesday before lunch and didn't let up until Wednesday noon. Wednesday morning around 7:30 the wind picked up and a few hours later it was snowing and raining and blowing. All. at. the. same. time! Fun times. The snow was soooo heavy and wet. Look at my poor electrical line to the house. This was it Tuesday afternoon:

And this was it Wednesday morning. It was so weighed down hubby had to go out and knocked the snow off of it. It's a good thing that other line was helping hold it up.

It was no surprise when the power went out. It wasn't just our house but pretty much the whole city. So no dayhome, no school, no work. Son and Younger Daughter were pretty happy. They are in finals at school right now. Because they didn't shut the schools right away they had to start heading out because one cannot be late for finals testing. After much nervous prayer by their mother, she let them go & they carefully drove to school because the radio hadn't yet announced their school's closure. Only to find that not even 5 minutes after they left, the officials, after humming and hawwing, had just closed the schools down. You have to know it is bad when they close schools around here. To put it in perspective, my kids have been in the school system since 1995 and I don't ever remember a school closure for them. It could be 40* below, with winds howling and dumping snow and as long as cars can drive they do not close the schools within the city. And the only reason they closed it this time, was not the blizzard itself, but because they had no guarantee when the electricity would be back on. So my two were exempt from their finals. And for Son that meant this is the second grade 12 departmental exam this year that he was exempt from. His big sister is going to be so choked when he brags tells her. Yes, the happy dance being done here today by at least two people.

But while it was all yeehaws about no school, the no power was no fun. You know, you really don't realize just how much a part of your everyday something is and how much you take it for granted until it is taken away. In our case, that was about 5 hours of no power. We live in an area where we're one of the first back on the grid. Lucky us. Because sitting with 2 sweaters on and a blanket wrapped around me and still being cold is not my idea of a good time. No power, no heat. And no hot coffee or hot drinks or hot food of any kind, no cooking, no making toast, no hair dryers, no tv, no laundry, no computer. Let me repeat that. NO COMPUTERS equals NO BLOGGING! And no phones. Even the cell phones were out for awhile. Thank God the toilets are not electric is all I can say!

Funny how badly you want food when it is unavailable. Sure there was granola bars and cold cereal but all of a sudden everybody was crying out for real food. And I had to go on fridge patrol so they weren't constantly opening the fridge and freezer, gazing sadly at everything they couldn't heat up and letting out all the cold. Dollars worth of food spoilage would not have made me a happy camper. You know what else? No delivery. 'Cause, you know, the restaurants had no power either! Oy Vay! And did I mention no blogging? I never realized how much my normal day depends on electricity. Let's just say I'm very thankful that I was born into this generation and not into the pioneer days. Oh and did I mention NO BLOGGING?!



So now the skies are blue, the birds are chirping and the sun is shining. And all that snow? It is melting. like. crazy. And now there is huge puddles and the grass is saturated under the down spouts and the city is has household flooding worries from the fast melt. Sigh. Welcome Spring in Southern Alberta!