Stir crazy

With the 18 hours of ice and sleet followed by 12 hours of snow, I'm officially stuck at home. I wasn't too sad at the possibility of spending the day in my pajamas watching television, but I only napped 15 minutes in between incessantly checking work e-mail and watching HGTV.

For the past three weeks I've been using my FitBook to log my nutrition, and I've tried to keep my calories under 1,500 a day. Today I stopped counting by mid-afternoon. My pal Krista gave me 72 Dove candy bars yesterday and I've managed to only eat two. But I've eaten half a bag of bagel chips in addition to three square meals. And since Friday is my exercise rest day, I haven't burned off any fat, unless you count walking to the pantry.

Watching home improvement shows has spurred me to start planning changes to my house. I think I'll start by rearranging my bedroom furniture tomorrow. I'd really like to paint an accent wall in here, but I don't know if I can make it to Lowe's in the snow and ice. That little project may have to wait 'til later.

I've also spent hours cyber bonding with my fellow tweeters in NWA. Those of you who don't have Twitter accounts should totally get one. Even if you don't update often, it's a great way to get instant news. They even created a special hashtag (a way of locating tweets about a specific subject) for this weather: #nwaicestorm10. Oh, the Arkansas (#arwx) folks tried to get us to join their group, but we NWA'ers prefer to think of ourselves as a separate entity, kind of like Texas is "like a whole other country."

If you're snowed in tomorrow night, check out Miss America on TLC at 7 p.m. CST. Sarah Slocum, Miss Arkansas, is as great of a human being as I've ever met and I'd love to see her do well.

Wishing you warmth, safety, and world peace.

Armageddon

I made it in to the office today. The roads actually weren't too bad since I only have major highways to travel when I take the long way to work. But when I got here, this is what my office looks like. (Sidenote... this is the second time in a year that a tree has fallen on my office. Is God trying to tell me something?)





I'm really grateful to live in a new subdivision with no trees! And I'm really, really grateful that I've not been without power in the past three days.

I hope you're all safe and warm and have power. Because, without power, you couldn't read the Drivel!

Never say never

I totally stole this pic from my pal Lindsay's Facebook page, but I thought it was cool and a good representation of just how much ice we have in Benton county. Besides, I have no trees in my neighborhood and goodness knows I'm not going to walk far enough to find a tree in this weather.

When I started this job, I was told that the university never, ever closes for weather. Guess what? We were closed today. For the first time in over 10 years.

Yeah, it's really icy.

Lindsay, Stephen and Alex are headed to my house since they have no power. Thankfully I've managed to keep electricity, heat, and cable, and my Internet's only been down for about three hours. I've been lucky.

Vanilla ice

For once, the weather guys were right on. There's ice. Lots and lots of ice. Every blade of grass in my yard is beautifully covered in ice. Thankfully I still have electricity, cable, and internet, so all is well. I've been home all day, but my VPN was working, so I've been working. The server went down about 30 minutes ago, so I guess work is done for awhile.

Ice, snow, milk and bread

Do you ever wonder if there's some sort of conspiracy between the weather guys and the grocery stores? Evidently sales tax receipts are down for the month, so presto... let's predict an ice storm... Wal-Mart will be packed! Ka-ching. 10% of milk and bread for everyone in the county!

As I lazily logged onto weather.com this evening and checked out the forecast, I realized my empty cupboards were good for my diet, but not-so-good for a hypothetical iced-in situation. So I braved WM with all the other crazies, most of whom were buying sugar-laced snacks and not bread. I bought both. And stuff to make both tomato basil soup and stew.

So now I'm prepared for the three flakes of snow we'll probably get. I'm not expecting any weather but bitter, bitter cold. I'm so ready for spring!