Ice

We were scheduled for a big nasty ice storm last week that was projected to be of "catastrophic" proportions.  

I know that the weathermen are wrong 50% of the time.  I don't blame them, they can only do so much with something as unpredictable as weather.  I do not care, I listen intently and prepare for the worst case scenario every time, no matter what.  20 years of disaster preparedness training in the military is deeply ingrained in my brain. 

By the time Justice had gotten off the bus on Thursday afternoon, they had already called school off the next day.  The prediction was that we would receive enough ice to knock out power for up to ten days in our area.  It was also going to be bitter cold.  And while I'm perfectly fine with being snowed in for ten straight days (or iced in as it would be in this case), I am not fine with losing power.  Three boys and a boy-like husband cooped up in the house without power is a bad combination for the one woman in the house.  Well, Shandi is here too but she can sleep-on-demand so I knew she'd be hibernating till it was over.  

I was really prepared for this storm, so I knew that it wouldn't be nearly as bad as it could have been.  You know, Murphy's Law and all.  I had enough food for at least two weeks, plenty of water, etc.  I pulled the extra down blankets out of the attic and prepared a bed in our room for the boys (to keep all the body heat in one room if the power goes out).  We have a gas cooktop, so I knew I'd be able to use that, and we also have a super warm natural gas heater in our garage that we can use if we get REALLY cold.  I changed the flashlight batteries, staged everything in it's emergency place so the kids could get to it from the drills we have occasionally, and then we just waited.

And it was a dud.  And I was glad.  We didn't lose power at all, let alone for ten days.  The good news is that I won't have to put any effort into preparing for the next storm, because we are already ready to go.  I stored everything back in it's proper place and now we will just wait.  Hopefully we won't need it the entire remainder of winter, but it's good to know it's all ready in the event we do need it.

While it wasn't nearly the storm they predicted, we did get some good quality ice around the yard.  I took some pics of the prettier things.  It's still bitterly cold outside, and nothing in the yard has melted yet.