Tag Archives: seasons

No Mo’ Nemo

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Cabin fever has set in.  We have watched far more of the weather news that I would recommend, cooked and baked (and consequently overindulged), played multiple games of scrabble, blogged, edited pictures, watched several basketball games and a movie in the past 24 hours. The travel ban is lifting in 4 minutes as I write this and I couldn’t be more excited about dining out this evening.

Since I was confined to the house, I thought I might as well track the progress of the storm.  Here is my coverage of the storm (on a 24-48 hour delay):

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Backyard around noon Friday.

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Front yard around noon Friday.

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Backyard about 2 hours later.

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Front yard about 2 hours later.

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The deck around 2PM Friday.  Keep this image of the overturned table handy.

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A backyard-deck combo around 2PM Friday.  I was getting a little carried away.  There was nothing else to do.

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Front yard around 4PM Friday, just as the travel ban took effect.  I don’t remember ever being under a travel ban before.  It makes you really want to travel.

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Backyard around 4PM Friday.  The snow was beginning to bury things.

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The kitchen island around 4PM Friday. Time for some wine and cheese.

I also made some German chocolate bourbon pecan pie bars.  I’ll post about those later.

Back to the snow coverage (day 2):

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Approximately 9AM Saturday morning.  We had officially been snowed in.  Travel ban still in effect as snow removal teams tried to clear roadways.

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Front yard Saturday morning.  There is an Adirondack chair under all of that snow somewhere.  Anyone feel like a cup of coffee on the front patio?

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Winter wonderland.

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The deck was almost completely filled in.

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The front walk/tunnel midday on Saturday as the snow tapered off.

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No amount of snow will keep my family from grilling.  The first thing my dad did outside was shovel a path on the deck in case we needed some steaks for dinner.  Those are the table legs sticking out of the snow.

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As I mentioned, the travel ban was lifted at 4PM on Saturday, so we ended up going out to dinner. The highways had been salted and were almost completely clear of snow.  Some of the back roads and smaller roads in the city were still quite snowy, but that didn’t stop us.  Here we are exiting the restaurant.  The snow was up to the top of the parking meters.  Karma for the cranky meter maids if you ask me.

Y’all be careful,

Sugarlump

I found Nemo

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I made a somewhat last-minute decision to fly back to Boston for a long weekend.  It figures that I picked the weekend an “epic” blizzard is due to hit New England.  I think it’s karma for me calling Nashville silly for canceling school due to the threat of 3 snowflakes.

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I’ll have you know that I left unseasonably nice weather in Nashville.  I felt kind of ridiculous heading to the airport yesterday in my fur vest given that it was about 65 degrees.

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I was supposed to fly out from Nashville this morning, but, given the rumblings of the impending storm, on Wednesday we scrambled to change my flight and I ended up flying into Providence last evening.  Good thing, considering almost 4000 flights have been canceled because of this storm, including the one I was originally booked on, which would have been arriving about now in Boston.  That would have been a dicey landing.

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Thankfully, I was able to reschedule my plans for tomorrow to this morning.  I headed out at 8:45 before the snow began and found it very challenging to obey the 55 mph speed limit coming from 70 mph speed limits in Nashville.  All I’m going to say is that I kept it under 75 and I made it back in one piece.

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Now I can enjoy a lazy couple of days by the fire. I don’t have a fireplace at my place in Nashville so I feel like I’m at a ski resort at the moment.  Maybe I can talk my mom into making me some hot chocolate…this will be a good test of how diligent she is about reading my blog…

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Although I love the weather in Nashville (minus the tornadoes at night), I hadn’t realized how much I missed a good snow.  It’s really beautiful.

Hopefully there won’t be any major issues with this storm.  Not only was school canceled, but many offices and businesses as well.  Travel ban in effect as of 4PM.  This is serious.  Think positive thoughts.

Y’all be careful,

Sugarlump

Cause for Alarm

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This week has been full of surprises.  Tuesday evening, I went to ladies’ night at a shooting range and got second place in our bullseye competition.  Everybody watch out.

Early the next morning, at approximately 3:00AM, I awoke to tornado sirens.  This was the first time I had heard them in person since moving to Tennessee so it took me a minute to figure out what was going on.  My weather channel alerts on my phone confirmed that we were under a tornado warning and needed to take cover immediately.  I grabbed my phone, the cats, two cushions from the sofa, and my laptop and closed us in the bathroom as I set up a little fort with my cushions in the bathtub.  I then decided I needed a flashlight and a bottle of water.  Maybe I should have thought through my tornado plan a little bit more.  In my defense, it was JANUARY(!) and tornado season doesn’t usually start until spring.

Anyway, as we waited out the very strong winds and tracked the radar on my laptop, the cats could not have been more confused/annoyed.  They kept looking at me like I was crazy and tried to dig a hole under the door to get out of the bathroom.  Apparently tornado safety does not apply to them.

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Thankfully, other than some seriously violent winds, we were alright.  There were, however, a few tornadoes within 50 miles of us that damaged several buildings and pulled roofs off of homes.

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Less than 48 hours later, the temperature had dropped nearly sixty degrees from the low seventies into the teens and it was snowing.

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It’s a beautiful, sunny day here as long as you’re indoors.  It’s a whopping 17 degrees at the moment and with the wind chill, it feels like single digits.

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There is still snow on most roofs and school was canceled, which I thought this was pretty silly, given that we got about 2 inches of snow.  New Englanders wouldn’t bat an eye at that kind of snowfall.  But then I discovered that there was still some dangerous ice lurking around as I tried to speed out of the gate at my apartment complex earlier this morning.  I spun in place for about 10 seconds until my Jeep finally slid forward, narrowly avoiding the gates as they began to close.

Like the weather, my garbage disposal has been acting backwards this week.  The other day, as I ran the water and turned on the disposal, instead of the water easing the food down the drain as the disposal ground it up, all of the food and water spun violently up and out of the drain and onto me and the counter.  The maintenance man just found a metal spear approximately the size of a chopstick jammed in the pipes, courtesy of the previous tenant.

It’s been a strange couple of days.

In other (likely related) news, I’m back to drinking coffee, but just a small cup.  Hopefully, things will now return to normal.

Y’all be careful,

Sugarlump

What Next?

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This weekend, it was over 70 degrees on Saturday and part of Sunday.  A cold front moved in and by Sunday afternoon we were under a tornado warning as it stormed violently.  Yesterday, it was sort of snowing/sleeting with a winter weather advisory in effect.  Today, we are under an ice storm warning.  It wouldn’t surprise me if tomorrow brought a heat advisory or pollen alert.  Hang tight.

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It started to get icy in the afternoon.  Schools closed early.  I had the day off and have spent most of it under several blankets on the sofa, catching up on months’ worth of the food network.   It was the laziest I’ve been in a while and it was great.

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The cats are so confused that they have been snuggling with each other in the same cat bed even though there is one for each of them, SIDE BY SIDE.  I’m not sure Gus is as pleased with situation as Scarlett is.

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Oops, she heard me.  Not pleased with my commentary.

I think I’ll go out for a Mexican dinner to spice things up a little bit.  I lived in the Northeast nearly my whole life, so I’m not afraid of venturing out in the wintery weather.  (I apologize to my grandmothers if you’re reading this. I promise I’ll be careful.)

Stay tuned for the next spell of bizarre weather.  Get your bikinis ready.

Y’all be careful,

Sugarlump

Summer in January

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The weather has been quite strange here in Nashville the past few days.  We’ve had a lot of rain and temperatures hovering around 70 degrees.  I’ve had my porch door open all today and yesterday.  Just the week prior, I put a second duvet on my bed because it was so cold.  Last night, I couldn’t even look at the duvet without breaking a sweat.  I have no idea what is going on.

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It rained off and on yesterday, leaving behind some interesting clouds as the sun set.  If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought it was July.

I think this is one of my favorite sunset pictures I have taken so far.

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Every 5 minutes, the sky looked completely different.

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This is the most color I’ve seen in the sunset in months.  I also work in a windowless office and it is pitch black by the time I leave work at 6:00 so it could very well be that I’ve missed a lot of beautiful sunsets this winter.

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I couldn’t get enough of this sunset.  I hadn’t realized that I’d been in such sunset withdrawl.

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Check out those hot pink clouds!  They look like cotton candy in the sky, which reminds me of the fair, which reminds me of summer.  I can’t wait for summer.

Y’all hurry back,

Sugarlump

A Series of Sunsets

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Lately, the sun has been setting not long after I get home from work.  The temperatures have been pleasant so I usually walk in the front door and towards my sliding door to open it and let in some fresh air.  As I open the door to my west-facing porch, I catch the reds and oranges of the sunset beginning to flood the sky.  I almost always go and grab my camera to take a picture of yet another lovely sunset.

I have countless photos of sunsets taken from my porch just in the last month or so.  All of them were taken at roughly the same time and roughly the same angle (note the ever-present evergreen), and yet none of them is alike.  In fact, it amazes how different they are.

Clear and bright.

Warm and radiant.

Rich and painterly.

Soft and resilient.

Steadfast and soothing.

Dark and dueling.

I think the two low spots where the sunset is poking through the clouds look like a pair of demonic eyes.

And today’s shot as the storms roll through:

Muted and obscured.

I’ll never tire of watching and capturing the sunset.   I’m sure I would feel the same way about the sunrise if I were up early enough to witness it.  Don’t be expecting a post entitled “A Series of Sunrises” any time soon.   Partly because I don’t have a clear view to the east to capture the sunrise and mostly because I don’t like getting up in the dark.

I’ll stick to sunsets for now.

Y’all hurry back,

Sugarlump

Rainy Day Reflections

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Rainy days inspire in me a spirit of reflection.   Today, I found myself deep in thought about recent events in my life and those coming up.  Rainy days also provide me with great clarity on the things right before my eyes.  Here are the thoughts that came to mind while sitting at a traffic light on my way home:

  1. I think it’s time for new windshield wipers.
  2. I love October.  There is relief from the heat of summer and the holiday season is just around the corner.
  3. I survived big girl Sunday school yesterday.  I had been talking about going for weeks, but had some irrational fear that I would be put on the spot to recite the bible in its entirety.  When I told Grandmother I was a little scared to go, she reminded me that this year I moved 1000 miles away from my home of 13 years on my own to a city where I knew no one.  She thought I could manage a new Sunday school class.  She was right.
  4. I can’t wait to wear boots.
  5. The new season of Dexter began last night.  Per usual, I had nightmares after watching it, even though I love it and subject myself to it willingly.  I woke up at 6:23AM in a panic and almost got up out of bed to make sure my deadbolts were locked.  My alarm clock was due to go off in 37 minutes and the sun was going to rise momentarily, so I decided I was probably safe and rolled over.
  6. I wore a sweater to work today and I didn’t sweat.   I guess Fall is actually here.
  7. I was asking one of my clients today if she had any pets other than her golden retriever.  She said, “Only peeves.”  For a moment, I racked my brain, trying to recall if that is a type of fish or rodent, and then I burst out laughing.  People are funny.
  8. I’m hosting Christmas at my apartment this year for my immediate family.   I’m so excited that I can hardly keep it together.
  9. I think I’m going to grow my hair out.  It’s currently just below my shoulders and I’m at that crossroads where I need to decide if I’m going to have it shaped to my normal just –above-the-shoulders-do or if I’m going to grow it out and become dangerous with a curling iron.
  10. My clients’ almost-two-year-old daughter said my name today.  She was also calling her overalls her “backpack,” so this was a pretty big deal.

Y’all stay dry,

Sugarlump