Snowflakes that stick to my nose and eyelashes

Okay, it's time to get my whine on. I really don't complain about much, especially things that I can not control. I am however very tired of white specks that keep falling from the sky this winter. I realize that I reside in upstate NY and that snow is a given between October and up until May some years. This year however is ridiculous. I know we've been way overdue for a mostly snowy winter for quite some time now. The last few years have been fairly low on accumulated snow fall. Most of the recent years have only given us two or three 6 incher storms with a few flurry outbreaks. This year however has been different and I had a feeling it was coming when we had no snow at Thanksgiving. My postulate that if it snows on Thanksgiving it is a grey Christmas with no snow and if there is no snow at Thanksgiving it is guaranteed to snow at Christmas seems to have been correct again. Although this year it has been a little excessive. There have been only one or two weeks since December that it has not snowed. There was also one week where we had 3 storms that gave us 6 inches apiece; more in the hill towns surrounding my area. I consider myself a person that actually likes snow. I like it on my days off because I can watch it from my livingroom window with a hot mug of coffee in hand wrapped in a throw blanket snuggled up with a cat. If I'm working and it's snowing it means my morning is slow customerwise and I can get a lot done before they realize that it isn't stopping anytime soon and they sally forth to go about their daily routine. Having lived in the northeast all my life (my husband has as well) I never have to run to the store for supplies before the "storm of the century hits" and deal with that whole mess because this time of year the pantry has extra food stored for just such an occation. Sure dinner may have to be frozen or canned ravioli but it still eats. Probably the only thing we've really had to go out and get before a storm is milk, but these days if you have to you can get that at stewarts or even a lot of gas stations up here. You pay through the nose, but since you want to gas up your car before the storm anyway it saves a trip to the grocery store and dealing with the masses. For anyone reading this who is not from the northeast and wonders why you gas up the car before a storm there are 2 reasons (one of which my sister mentioned that I never had thought of because the first one was good enough for me). First and foremost: You may find yourself stranded for lengthy amounts of time out on the road due to traffic accidents(the most common occurance), weather conditions making driving over 20 miles dangerous (it once took me 2 and a half hours to make the 40 minute drive to work once), and the least desireable reason, you have found yourself stuck on the side of the road or in a snowbank and have to wait for a tow truck to come and get you (had this happen twice, once when my windsheild wipers quit on me so I had to pull over and once when I blew a flat and ended up skidding slowly into a snowbank). During a really fierce snowstorm you can wait a good long time for help to arrive. I was lucky both times because there was nothing wrong with my engine so I waited in comfort. Just remember folks that if you are in this type of situation and you leave the car running ALWAYS open a window. The last thing your rescuer needs to see is that he/she has arrived to save you and you are already dead due to carbon monoxide poisoning. That's your public service message for the day. My sisters add on to the gassing up thing is that it makes the car heavier and that is better for traction. My car is frontwheel drive (my husbands is 4 wheel drive) so I'm not sure that it would work as well, I would also have to crank out the figures of how much a gallon of gas weighs to figure out how much extra weight is added. If you go by the theory that every little bit helps though, then it helps. Adding that weight to the bag of sand, cat litter, or de-icer pellets you just put in your car (that most of us up here have) then you're talking something. Oh, and the aforementioned items serve a dual purpose, most of them can be put around your tires should you end up stuck to the point you can't rock your car out. Not so much of a concern now that I take the "big wheels" to work now. My husband 's vehicle has something called clearance that my little station wagon does not. My car does well in snow but not deep snow...gets stuck all the time in that because it's so low to the ground. I fear I have offened the snow gods because as I have been writing this the storm outside has gotten significantly worse, Tiddly-Pom. As I look at it through the window pane I realize that it is still beautiful. Carefree little flakes dancing in the wind. I just wish there weren't so many of them this year, that's all.