Finally...SNOW!

We've had a weird, warm winter around here.  Hardly any snow this season, which is very unusual in western New York.  Whenever we've had snow this season, it only lasts for a day or two, then the temperature goes up again, and it rains, and all the snow melts away.  I suppose I shouldn't complain, since snow is a bear to drive in, and my husband commutes to work 2-3 times a week.  But everything is so much prettier with snow on the ground.  I've been sick of seeing brown grass and leafless trees.  It's felt like a perpetual November.

But...we had a crazy amount of snowfall today.  And I think (hope?) this snow may last awhile.  Are you staying this time, Winter?  You're only a couple months late! ;)

*EDIT*: And now I'm hearing that it's going back up into the 40's and is going to rain this week.  Blah.

Today was my mom's birthday, so we drove in to Rochester to have lunch with my parents and their friends.  We had a lot of snow in Lyndonville, and visibility on the parkway was so bad that we weren't sure if we would have to spend the night at my parents' house.  But when we got to Rochester, there was NO snow at all!...not in the sky, not on the ground!  Amusing, since we drove through a blizzard to get there!

On the way home, though, the drive was less nerve-wracking.  It was snowing, but it was a pleasant snow this time...gently falling...not blowing like it had been on the drive out. 

There's a spot on the Lake Ontario Parkway where there is a little pulloff and a tree that I used to photograph almost every Sunday when we used to drive out there for church, before we moved to be closer to our church.  I don't get to photograph it that often anymore, since it's usually dark when we are coming home from Rochester.
We stopped there on our way home today to let Luna run around a little, for us to look at the lake, and for me to get a winter picture of the tree.

We also took a walk in our backyard when we got home.  That fence and lights are from the sewage treatment station that's behind our house (My mom commented on Facebook that it looks like a "military installation" in our backyard!). Those small trees mark the edge of our property line (the large pine and apple tree are just a few feet beyond our property).

The gently falling snow was so lovely and peaceful, and Luna has such fun bounding through the snow!

Snowy Plush

Well, we're not getting snow quite yet here in western New York, but I got inspiration for a snowman Nubbin.

I made the red heart kind of asymmetrical for a reason. It's kind of an homage to one of my favorite children's books called "The Mystery of the Missing Red Mitten" by Steven Kellogg. After making a snowman, a little girl finds that she has lost one of her red mittens. She looks for it and imagines what could have happened to it and at the end of the story she ends up going back to the snowman and finding that he's melted a little and that he has a red heart...and that it's her missing red mitten!

And going along with the snow theme, I thought I'd also share pictures of my Abominable Snowman sock monster.

I love his little blue claws!

Winter Wonderland

~Sings~ "Walking through a winter wonderland...."
I offered to shovel the rest of the driveway for Rachel this afternoon. She originally had called me to see if I could watch her kids while she did it, but I know she always does it, so I figured it would be nice if I did it for a change.
I'd only been out there for a few minutes when her oldest son, David, came out to help me. I thought Rachel had sent him out to help, but I found out later that he'd come out to help me of his own accord, just because he wanted to. Rachel thought he was going outside to play in the backyard! He was quite the little helper. It made shoveling a lot more enjoyable than if I was doing it alone! Rachel took these pictures just as we were ready to come in.

Yay for snow!..phew!

Huge Car Accident in Rochester

I know this isn't craft related, but I feel the need to blog about it.


We were on our way to have our typical Sunday lunch with my parents. We left the house at 12:30 ish to get to the resturaunt by 12:45. It was blue sunny skies, but the wind was blowing snow across the highway (390 south) so bad that it caused a whiteout...and then everyone on the highway stopped. Then there were emergancy vehicles trying to get through to the accident ahead that had cause us to stop. We couldn't see what was going on through the mass of cars and the firetruck that had driven up the left side and parked just ahead of us. We sat there for an hour and a half...wondering what was going on...scanning the radio stations for any sign of what might have happened...entertaining ourselves by reading my old children's books I got from my parents' house and still have in a crate in the back seat of my car. Finally, a policeman said they'd be having us back up one car at a time and turn around to drive to the turnaround (the ones you see the Troopers parked at that always have the "no U turn" signs on them) and get to the northbound side of the highway to then detour to wherever we needed to go. Thankfully, the closest exit was the one we needed to get off on to get back home. When we got home, CJ said it was the "Longest, shortest trip ever"

Obviously, I had called my dad earlier when we first stopped, saying that we might be late, and then called him again after the emergancy vehicles started coming up alongside us, saying that I didn't think we weren't going to be making it to meet them for lunch. We saw 5 stretchers go past us (the ambulance was not too far behind us) as well as the firemen bringing out at least 4 sets of Jaws-of-life. We knew something big had happened ahead. I had no idea how big until after church tonight when we checked the Democrat & Chronicle website to see if they had any info on what happened and found the article about what had happened. I also had recorded the channel 13 news to see what happened (we had seen the news cameras). It's also on channel 10's website

It had been a 36 car pileup. 36!

February 10, 2008 5:53 pm — A 17-year-old Rochester girl was killed in a 36-car accident on Interstate 390 today, Gates police said. Police said Le Ngo died in the midday accident that also left 24 people injured.At least four people had to be extricated from their cars by the Jaws of Life, police said at a 5 p.m. news conference.Police temporarily closed a portion of Interstate 390 near the Greater Rochester International Airport because of the multi-car pile-up, which authorities believe was caused by white-out conditions.A many as 25 ambulances were called after the 12:39 accident on southbound 390 at Scottsville Road, according to officials at the 911 center. Authorities said the accident scene was 100 yards long.Northbound 390 was reopened within two hours but officials were forced to keep the southbound lanes closed for nearly five hours after the series of collisions.At least 15 tow trucks have been called. More than a dozen cars were towed to the sides of the exit ramp so that the highway could be cleared.

At the time, I had thought maybe 3 or maybe even 5 or 6. But I had no idea when we were sitting in the car how huge of an accident was really ahead of us. And not too far ahead of us either (if you look at the upper righthand corner of the second picture and see the firetruck, that was the one we were only a carlength behind).

If we had left just a few minutes earlier, we could have been right in the middle of it. It's things like this, that even though that thought of "if we had been a few minutes/seconds earlier..." freaks me out, it is such a huge sign to me that the Lord protected us. I sent a link of the article to my parents and my dad wrote back and said pretty much the same thing..."God loves you & protected you both. A few minutes ahead of that time, you both could have been right in the middle of it all. God is good, all the time."