Entombed in Ice

The weather geek was right. We are pretty much entombed in ice. There's a thick glaze over everything. Even the outside walls of my house are glazed. My front walk has about an inch of ice on it. There's traffic on the major road behind my house that my office overlooks, and people are driving at normal fast speeds on it, but I wouldn't be so confident, as we're not above freezing, and the wet stuff on the road can refreeze. All the plants are also coated in ice. The leaves make a kind of clacking sound when the wind blows.

This is what the hedges in front of my porch look like.


They got the runoff from the roof. It looks like there's snow on the ground, but that's a layer of sleet on top of a layer of ice, with a layer of ice on top of the sleet. Still, it's pretty to look at out the window and pretend it's snow. I put up my Christmas tree and got the lights on it yesterday. I also got up the garlands on the loft and stair railings. Today I'll be decorating the tree.

I had planned to make Christmas cookies today, but they moved the church cookie sale/swap (people donate cookies, then you buy an empty box and get to go down the line, filling your box with a variety) to next weekend since we're supposed to get more ice/sleet over the weekend and it won't thaw until Monday. I may bake anyway, just for fun. Yesterday, I baked bread in case the power went out and I needed sandwiches (I hadn't factored that into my meal planning when shopping, but I had planned to make bread, so I had ingredients). Last night before I went to bed, I boiled a kettle of water and filled my Thermos so I could have hot cocoa even if I lost power. The water was still really hot this morning, so I might even have been able to make tea (though not good tea). I'll have to do that again tonight, since the weather geek is talking about filling a tub with water to make sure he has water even if pipes freeze tonight. When the more conservative, science-based meteorologist starts prepping, it's a good idea to make plans.

Now I think I'm going to go do some house cleaning so I can spend the rest of the day playing "snow day" and maybe working on my screenplay.