Ice Day

  This is the first and only school year I will spend in the Dallas area.  No I didn't plan on moving back to Missouri quite so quickly when I moved here, but that's the way it has worked out. With farm boy in MO I'm just as happy as he is to be returning to Missouri (his neck of the woods) this summer.  

   So needless to say I've found some of the Dallas culture exciting and fun, but their idea of severe weather really amuses me.  Apparently I just survived the great ice storm of 09, like nothing Dallas has seen in 20 plus years.  Yes, there was ice.  Yes, the roads were slick.  Yes, people who don't know how to drive on ice (i.e. almost everyone here) got into wrecks.  No, this was not a major ice storm.  

   First off I don't believe you can consider it a major storm if it lasts less than 24 hours.  My school dismissed all the kids at 11:30 yesterday, in cold mist.  It was still above freezing when I got home at 12:30.  I'm definitely not complaining, I love days off that nobody had scheduled, because scheduled days off you always have something going on.  Ice or snow days get to be my bum around the apartment days, which I LOVE!  Anyway back to my story, everyone within miles and miles of DFW metroplex has today off school, even though the forecast for this afternoon is 45 degrees. 

   Secondly the ice didn't really cover anything except the roadways.  There were no trees bent under the added weight, no power lines hanging lower than they should, nothing like that.   For those of you who are from Dallas or somewhere southern, and maybe thinking this chick's crazy I almost died getting to work..... I'm sorry I don't mean to be insensitive.

   This is the type of ice storm I'm used to!  Last year we had a really big ice storm.  It knocked power out in some areas for more than a week.  My brother, sister-in-law, and my two nieces had to come live with me; the only family member with heat and running water. The only thing missing was my cable, which had been ripped out of the side of the house by a downed tree.  Most schools were cancelled for days on end.  Which got very boring for nieces, sister-in-law and I since we were stuck at home.  There was over an two inches of ice on everything.  The whole area had devastation from falling trees pulling down lines, crushing cars, landing on houses.  My family was very blessed only to sustain a few downed trees, the only thing that the trees fell onto was my fence.  Thank God!  Now that's an ice storm.

  Now I say all this because living in Dallas has been a weird shift in thought all year.  I don't mean to make fun of the craziness this batch of ice has caused, I just am not nearly as freaked out as the rest of the metroplex has become.  It just takes a lot of getting used to living around here I guess.  Hope you all have a warm safe day!