The storm is over. It’s a beautiful, sunny day now, unlike yesterday’s windy snowy day. We couldn’t even get good views of what was happening outside, as the snow stuck to the windows. We figure we got at least two feet of snow, though maybe it was more.
The view from inside the house.
The big news in town was that our local Trader Joe’s roof partially collapsed, with its walls buckling. See the video here. That’s sad for a number of reasons, like the loss of business for them and employee jobs. Personally it’s sad for me because I shop there weekly and there are quite a few items I only buy there. Just checked the site – there’s another one maybe 20-25 minutes away, so I may have to check it out until this one gets rebuilt. I know, first world problems.
The wind was blowing! Our garage was only open so Mark could put the garbage and recycling in. We did some major purging during the storm.
I took the quiet day at home as an opportunity to clean up the attic and basement a little. Even though they don’t look much different, we got rid of a bunch of bags of things, mostly the kids’ stuff they stored in the attic and some craft items in the basement that were partly used and no longer needed.
As a bonus of doing this, Dori found a winter hat she lost and Zack found some Pokemon cards. And I found my winter boots.
Mark went outside to shovel twice. This was before the first shoveling, because you can still see the planter. The screen door obviously wasn’t shut fully because we got snow inside the door and on the screen handle. Later we had to exit through the back because it was impossible to push this door open.
The back door was even worse, with snow coming in through the screen.
These are my potted plants behind the house.
I was going to make a hearty soup for dinner but I didn’t start it in time (it needs 2-3 hours too cook – oops!) so instead we had fondue.
Yes, we’re still using your wedding gift, Brett! Not pictured: broccoli. The best dipping item was the roasted garlic.
Sunday morning – the hired help. Or rather, the husband.
The snow was really heavy. It’s been falling off the plants today.
The snow drift on the roof
The minivan before we cleaned it off
Mark cleaned his car off at 4:30 yesterday. This is what fell after that.
It looks like winter. We have a lot of icicles, which I’ve been told means we have heat escaping from the house. Uh oh.
Our light (above) has a lot of ice on it, as a huge icicle hanging from the gutter keeps dripping on it. It appears we had mail delivery on Saturday (unless I forgot to get the mail Friday), and the delivery person as always left the mail sticking out of the box, so it now has ice on it keeping it open. Yay!
The snow is up to the bottom of the swing.
The bench out back this morning around 9.
The same bench by noon.
It’s a good day to go sledding. Unfortunately the sledding hills around here get super crowded, and the kids have decided that sledding is an activity that sounds good but in actuality really isn’t. So we’ll have another quiet day at home, though Mark is going running. Good luck to him.
Letters from New Jersey 
Such fun in New Jersey! There is a Trader Joe’s in Florham Park, but no alcohol there.
By: Cheryl Vivona on January 24, 2016
at 4:53 pm