And, Then Comes the Snow

Come Monday morning, I’m staring out of the window, then at my calendar and then back out of the window… the street in front of us is covered by a thick blanket of snow. I open the front door in the darkness and stick the kiddos school ruler into the white blanket, 6 ½ inches and it’s still snowing. The school is closed, and I start working on emptying my calendar. Suddenly it looks like about half of my neighborhood are people vital to their employers, probably all emergency room doctors, nurses, surgeons, police officers, PSE technicians and others that really need to be at work, like snow plow drivers. It’s funny how I had been under the impression that I live in a neighborhood with tech workers that have remote access and can work from home. I’m one of the lucky ones, no one wants to buy or sell a house just today, meetings can be rescheduled and everything that isn’t strictly F2F with clients, can be done from the comforts of my house.

I pour another cup of coffee, open the downstairs closet door and start sorting through stuff. I know I had bought them all snow pants, so that one’s under control. So is the puffy jacket section but I know that winter boots will have to be replaced by wellies and woolen socks. I rummage through storage boxes looking for mittens, gloves, scarves and hats and fifteen minutes later I have a collection of potential candidates spread around the living room floor. I sort everything in three piles by size; small for Magnus, medium for Max and the largest ones for Mia. The fourth pile on the floor has my stuff in it.

I return to my desk upstairs and start writing emails, reading emails and planning for the week. I look for social media posts knowing that IG will be covered by snow pictures. I repost my YouTube video from last year, the one reminding everyone to clear their trees and shrubs from snow before the weight of the white fluff causes damage by breaking branches off them. There are no new listings – no one is selling or buying homes today, at least not anywhere between South Bellevue and Everett, and the further East we go, the more snow there is.

We work on the website together as these kinds of days are perfect for doing all the tasks that tend to be pushed aside to wait for a better moment. Our new website is almost ready, it’s more about finetuning now. We’re double checking and rewriting content, making sure the disclaimers are there and switching some pictures around. We’re discussing timing for launch and hopefully a launch party at some point.

The kids go sledding and a bit later I grab Martha and go join them. I look at their sled and make a mental note that our almost twenty-year-old sled needs replacing, I remember looking at sled a year ago and then giving up on the idea I thought enough snow for sledding two year in a row would be pretty slim nuggets. Apparently, I had been wrong and should have just ordered a new sled. Will I learn from my mistake? I don’t know… is this really going to repeat next year? What is the likelihood of that?

Last year our neighborhood was stranded for days until the Idaho boys came and dug us out. The memory is still quite painful, and I start feeling somewhat claustrophobic thinking about it. I push the feeling aside repeating myself that this is going to be different. For one we have a new truck this year, one that isn’t just a pretty sports truck but a true off roader that was brought over from Idaho in June. It doesn’t help my neighbors though and I spend quite some time on social media reasoning why we need to be plowed out of here a bit sooner this year. Looking at King County snow route map, we are not a level 1, 2, 3 or 4 area, we are simply not on their radar, however much we have county roads. When the snowplow clears the street in the evening, I look outside in humble amazement. Someone at the county clearly knew we have a school here, that even if the kids can reach the building by foot the staff for sure cannot and it may be a bit harsh to have them all park by the grocery store and ask them to walk a mile to the school.

Both of us grew up in Finland and I have driven thousands if not tens of thousands of miles in snow. We have a truck that can easily take on the snow and the ice, so it feels a bit silly to not leave. It feels less silly when I look at the news; a 7-car pileup in Redmond, 30 cars on SR-520, collisions everywhere. There are so many drivers that have little experience in driving in these conditions, people that have been lured to thing that AWD means safety, and that all season tires can take on snow and ice. Hopefully by Thursday we will be able to get out of the neighborhood again safely. My job isn’t really that important. It can wait. Call me a whimp if you want to. Now, I’m going to go and build another snowman.