Three Storms

Looking out the window of the high school library at 8:40 while

my freshman English students were Galileo testing during 1st period.

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

During this past week, three storms hit us here in the White Mountains. The first, on Monday and Tuesday, brought mostly rain with just scattered snow flurries. It wasn't even a heavy rain, so it wasn't bad at all. However, the second storm was supposed to hit on Wednesday and bring plenty of snow, so Mark and I went shopping after work on Tuesday to make sure we sere stocked up on supplies for the next week. We remember March 2006, when we got 4 feet of snow and were snowed in for 3 days, until the snow plows could get back into our neighborhood. We were stocked up then, but we realized how bad it would have been if we hadn't been prepared.

As promised, the second storm hit very early Wednesday morning. We woke up to heavy snowfall, which persisted until about noon. Driving was slick and tricky, and everyone expressed surprise that school hadn't been cancelled. Several inches had fallen by noon.

Looking out the window of my orthopedic surgeon's office at 3:15.

After noon, the snow lightened up and fell intermittently throughout the afternoon, sometimes lighter, sometimes heavier. I left school two hours early for an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon and the driving wasn't too bad by then.

I'd finally had an MRI done on my right knee on Monday, December 28th. Even prior to that, I'd already made an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon for Wednesday, January 13th. Two days after the MRI, though, Dr. Reagan's office called to tell me he'd read the MRI report and didn't want to wait that long to see me. Thus we moved the appointment up one week, to this particular snowy Wednesday. I'd been able to schedule my original appointment for after school. Now, of course, there were no later slots available, so I had to request a sub to cover my last two periods of the day.

It turns out that I do have a tear in my meniscus, as well as something that looks like a "bruised bone." Otherwise, the doctor said I have almost no signs of arthritis and very little wear and tear on the knee joint. Not bad for my age! The scope-surgery is scheduled for this Friday, January 15th. The doctor will cut away the troublesome parts of the meniscus tear and clean up anything else he finds in there.

Looking out the window of Denny's at 4:40.

Mark had an appointment for physical therapy to help alleviate the pain in his back, which happened to be at the same time as my appointment. Luckily, my orthopedic surgeon's office is right next-door to Mark's PT office. We were both done by 3:45. The snow was falling very lightly at this point, but we knew it would get heavier as the evening approached. 

Mark had invited me to Denny's for dinner that night, since he'd been given an after-Christmas bonus gift card for $25 at work. Looking at the heavy gray clouds overhead, we decided to go ahead and have an early dinner. That way, we would be able to get home and stay inside when the weather worsened. Besides, he had skipped lunch and it had been 4 hours since my lunch at school. We were both ready! (And it was yummy, and Mark got lots of special attention from his co-workers, who clearly like him a lot!)

Our front yard just before noon on Thursday.

The next storm brought all the snow it promised. School was cancelled for both Thursday and Friday. By the end of the day on Thursday, we had a foot of snow on the ground. The snow is beautiful and I love it dearly, as long as I don't have to be out driving in it. And as long as the electricity doesn't go out for more than an hour--which, thankfully, hasn't happened for six years or so. A house can get really cold really fast! We do have a fireplace, but it only heats the living room.

At 3:00 on Thursday.

I posted a short video of snow falling on my Facebook page several days ago, but below is a much better one. The snow was very heavy when I took this, and my camera captured it pretty well. In the background you can hear Dylan's voice talking to me; you just can't quite make out what he's saying. 

Dylan was clearing the snow from my car so I could drive up to Pinetop and pick up Jake from work. At 6:30 that morning, Jake had attempted to drive himself, but he took a spin on the slick road and ended up across the median, facing oncoming traffic. He returned home, shaken up a bit, and so I took him to work. Jake only started driving 5 months ago, being from the Bronx in New York City, and driving in snow is tricky even for experienced drivers.

Heavy snowfall at 3:00 on Thursday, January 7th.

A note for my friends who are not on Facebook: I've started posting to my diet blog, My fat Friend, again. It's New Year's Resolution time, after all! In the past 9 days I've lost 7.6 lbs, so I've started strong. Besides chronicling my progress, I'm including low-carb ideas and recipes. Please join me if you're interested!