Fly the coop

Well it's snowing, or should I say still snowing. Today's blizzard warning marks the latest in a string of record setting snowfalls over the area this winter. Since Friday afternoon, some places in this area will have received four feet of fresh snow. Total accumulations for this winter are the highest recorded since the 19th century. The theme of the season has been snow, snow, snow, snow.

This area is not particularly used to snow, or at least consistent snow. For the past three winters, it has been reasonable and mild, even humid and balmy at times. The weeks before and after our wedding in January 2007 saw temperatures in the 70s, and even the times it's been cold, it hasn't come with a lot of precipitation.

There are two consequences of this: 1) one is that you get a lot of people who don't know how to behave in the snow, such as the girl who decided to drive briskly down a long, icy hill in the family Thunderbird, windows down, crying, and saying, "I don't know how to drive this thing!" 2) you have to find more to do with yourself. The second consequence sometimes leads to the first, and vice versa. What do you do with yourself when your office is closed and you can't go out on the roads and you've watched enough dramas, sitcoms, soap operas, and ball games to fill a month's worth of content? What do you do when a lap around the living room (just for the sake of taking a lap) turns into 2 or 10 or 50? What do you do after you've cleaned, after you've read a book, after you've clipped your fingernails, after you've pet the pooch? There's no great purpose to the day.

Maybe some people have elaborate solutions in their households to combat boredom. Maybe it would help to have a big garage, have a project in the basement that needs working on, have a cat that's ready to burst with kittens, have a kitchen with golden utensils and a supply closet the size of the Queen Elizabeth and a stone oven large enough to cook a horse. Of course, if I had a kitchen with gold utensils and a supply closet and a stove for a horse and all that, who would I cook for? What would I make, and how much?

Here are some activities we have undertaken to pass the time this week:

• Cleaned our house (all the usual parts plus going through drawers and old stacks of paper)
• Looked at Facebook (many, many times)
• Watched reruns of our favorite shows
• Read a little, and looked at books/magazines we might like to read
• Watched the Superbowl, and the pregame, and the post game, and even a little of the endless commentary the next day
• Checked in our on our work email
• Shoveled each car out of a snowbank (we spent 3-4 hours total shoveling)
• Drank hot chocolate, hot tea, or hot coffee, depending on the time of day
• Braved the snow last night to go see a basketball game at George Mason (which went into overtime -- great game!)
• Played video games
• Learned new cheers (a household staple)
• Walked through the snow and took pictures
• Bundled and unbundled many times for a chance to go outside
• Did many loads of laundry because of all the going outside
• Checked the mailbox a dozen times, still to have no mail
• Played musical instruments
• Got out the other day to find an open fabric store. Also got new windshield wipers for my car
• Reminisced about good old times, such as when we used to play hide and seek out in the dark when I was growing up, or when we built snow caves in our back yard. Also remembered wrestling my cousin Cameron in knee deep snow in our front yard, and playing king of the mountain on a pile of snow
• Looked out our window (like 1000 times)

This has been a very restful, quiet week (other than the loud basketball game last night). I think we're a little cooped up though. I want to do something. It'd be nice to go out for a run or go swimming in our pool. Guess we'll just have to let the snow take its course and get ready for a very green and wet spring.