My DD was able to move her flight form Friday to Thursday or she wouldn't be here. She thinks she might have been on the last flight out of Portland. At least one of my kids has made it.

Blizzard here, we met the criteria: Falling snow with winds of at least 35 MPH and visibility reduced to less than 1/4 mile for more than 3 hours. It's been going on since last night and will last through tomorrow. Temperature right now is 8F, up from 5F a few hours ago. Wind chill tempertures are around 9 below zero. Fortunately I have no where I need to go and Amanda is 1/2 mile away. Ashley will be here on Christmas with the girls as long as the Road Commission can get the roads cleared.

We have gas for the generator and plenty of food, so we'll be fine. If we lose power, though, we have to start the generator, pump water into barrels, drive it to the farm and pump it into water tanks with a pump that runs on a car battery. THat happens after we break ice and dip out the "icebergs" because the tanks will be frozen at these temperatures, even inside the barn. That will have to happen at least twice a day and so much for the "idyllic" farm life, LOL.

Thanks for the good thoughts, sleevendog. Stay safe and warm everyone!

Annie

We're well out of all it here. Stay safe everybody! Warm wishes and wishes for warmth to all.

I'm seeing this on the TV. Frightening stuff. Stay safe and warm!

The winds here are crazy, but not much snow -- the news made it sound like it was going to be Snowmaggedon. Not hardly. There are blades of grass peeking through the snow, it's little more than a dusting. But it is dangerously cold, even without factoring in the insane wind gusts.

I had not taken notice of this storm before, but I found this info about it on weather.com. I did not realize that you could see the bomb coming so clearly.

If the cold air is coming from Canada, it must be even more horrible there.

It is the wind chill that is extreme. We were 5ºF this morning. DH noticed a half flat tire on his truck and had a short errand to run. Brrr...just 5-10 minutes outside. We have CanadaGoose coats and i have a heated vest. Need to un-earth our hat, scarf, and glove box.

Extended forecast is up to 50-55ºF next week. Phew.

Even without power we have heat/hot water with a transfer box.

Last week i made a big oven braised beef stew and a roast chicken for a couple meals and more stock. Power outages deletes our ovens but gas stovetop cooking is fine.

An abundance of seafood ordered for the holidays and all meals of veg etc all in the fridge/freezer through the new year. Well stocked as Annie is always.

We have a couple generators and a compressor for fixies. Still a chilly chore.

Mxk3, we only got about a foot of snow, but the wind gave us 5 foot drifts. I know because I had to shovel through one at the farm and I'm 5 feet tall, LOL. The tank heater for the cattle gave up the ghost and we chopped ice today, then went and bought a new tank heater. The closer to the Lake, the worse it got, I think. Just 30 miles West of us my youngest daughter got far worse than we did, while near Lansing Elery's youngest son got the cold, but not much snow. By Thursday it's supposed to be back in the 40s, but rain. The water tanks will be thawed by then, I think. I do think weather forecasters love a disaster, it keeps people watching. I know it was supposed to be "the storm of the century", but somehow it was just a really big storm here, not really even much out of the ordinary.

I know it's a pretty big storm (as in area), Elery's sister's place in Kentucky was as cold as it was here in Michigan, and my ex-in-laws in Mississippi had temps in the teens and some frozen water pipes. We're used to it, of course, but those in more southern states are not prepared, I feel for them. Even the ex-in-laws. (grin)

Annie