Blizzard 2011: The day everything turned white....

Good afternoon!  The weather channel was on point when they mentioned that we were in for a blizzard.  In the course of 24 hours, the state of Illinois was pummeled with about 2-3 feet of snow.  High winds created drifts that ranged between 3 and 4 feet.  The blizzard of 2011 is now put in the record books.

Here is a brief synopsis of my day dealing with the blizzard of 2011:

Tuesday 2/1/2011:  The snow began.  Not much was really landing, but with 40mph winds, it was going somewhere.  My darling husband (as I will call DH in the rest of this post) spent about an hour in the morning shoveling what has managed to land on the ground before leaving for work.  I did my best acting to avoid appearing awake to help him on this round.  Darling daughter (as I will call DD on this post) was home for the second day from school with a sinus infection.  I tried my hardest to figure when I shall go outside and attempt to keep the level of snow on the driveway to a reasonable level, but with the winds and heavy snowfall that happened in the afternoon, I decided that I will just hang with DD in the house because shoveling in 40mph winds is futile.  By the end of the day when DH came home, we had about 3 or 4 inches on the ground with drifts about 12 inches high.

Went to bed early to face the beast of snow in the morning.

Wednesday 2/2/2011:  Woke up to see everything covered in white.  Drifts ranging between 3 and 4 feet.  Somewhere, out there, was my husband's truck, Blackie.  DH tried to face this beast alone.  He started making his attempt at 5am.  By 7am, I was almost awake enough to see straight.  Having no other choice, I get my boots and coat on and venture into the white oblivion.  I grab a shovel and start digging through the snow.  DH tried to use the toughest snowblower we have... Nelly.  Sadly, the drifts were too high for Nelly and DH grabs Hope the shovel and starts digging.  In his 2 hour head start, he managed to clear a path from the front door to the driveway.  Forgetting to take some candids of the great white beast at the beginning stages, I only have a few pictures that seem remotely worthy to share,  Kind of hard to really see the magnitude when everything is white, but here goes.....

 DH using a shovel to knock down the drifts to let Nelly get at that mess.....

 Here's the newest team member of my shovel family...  Meet PITA-RITA.  A real Pain In The Ass to shovel with unless shoveling on level and smooth surfaces....  The snow piles on the sides of my driveway are about 4 feet high....

 Finally found DH's truck, Blackie....

Not the best shoveling by me, but not the worst.  A little sight to see from my living room window after we finished.  DH left to go to work to shovel there.  My driveway is cleaner than the street :)


Well, after 3 hours of digging with a short break to get my camera out with the help of DH, I think we got everything under control.  Well, almost.....

Until I looked out my back door and saw this.....

Hmmm... I think I will leave that to melt.

Now, I am off to nurse my blisters, take some Advil and rest a bit.

Have a great day :)