SNOVID-21

Well, it officially happened last week…. Hell froze over.

A small lake near my home in Texas, TEXAS y’all, that froze over so thick you could walk on it (not that I’d recommend that, of course.)

The snow started last Sunday evening and it all went to heck in a handbasket from there. SO MANY lost power and water, including my In-laws who finally gave up after three sleepless nights of below 40 degrees in their condo and braved the roads to make it here where we were lucky enough to have not lost power. The lakes froze over so thick people were actually ice skating on them. Stores, if they were open, quickly ran completely out of milk, eggs, water, bread, and meat. Maybe y’all think we’re a bunch of weenies if you live up north but the fact of the matter is Texas is, as a whole, completely unprepared for this kind of disaster. Tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, fires, we have the resources to deal with those. -2 degrees and a snowmaggedon? Nope. It just never happens down here, until now.

Wildly enough, the snow began to melt Friday after over a week of sub-freezing temperatures and by Saturday afternoon is was mostly gone… leaving behind a path of destruction in the form of previously frozen water pipes bursting like balloons. It’s not good…. so many homes and businesses are still without water, or have had to shut it off to minimize the destruction. It’s insane. Also insane? It hit 73 degrees here today.

Can’t go -2 degrees to 73 in one week, you say? Texas says: “Hold my beer.”

In the meantime I entertained myself by working a 60+ hour work week completely in panic mode alongside my team (also in panic mode), arguing with my kids who were batshit crazy from being cooped up, and taking pictures of the cats snuggled up together for warmth.

But today it was positively decent outside, and we started to assess my succulent gardens, which I’m super sad to say did not survive. I’m going to have to completely redo them this year. Honestly though, in the grand scheme of things we’re extremely lucky to have had heat and water the entire week, so there’s no way I’m going to complain.

And now I’m back to planning a normal week full of grocery runs and swim / art lessons and it’s weird, honestly, after the cluster that was last week but here we are, and it’s Texas, and like they always say….

“If you don’t like the weather here, wait 5 minutes…”