Snow

For the first time in several years, Victoria is experiencing a "serious" snowfall. Yesterday, it snowed about 8 inches and promises to continue today. The ground is far from frozen so actual accumulation is questionable though our backyard is totally white.

Not a problem. We drive a Subaru that will get us out of even the nastiest "snowbank" we could possibly come across here. Nevertheless, we have pulled the car into the driveway and are not venturing out. Mark walked to the store yesterday for milk and some luxuries (rented DVDs, frozen bags of french fries, etc.). Why when we have a perfectly good All-Wheel Drive car are we afraid to be out on the streets? Simple. Here we are in Canada. The local citizenry has absolutely NO CLUE how to drive in the snow. Top that off with the fact tha the city owns no snowplows or sand/salt trucks and driving becomes too high risk. While no school district in Ontario or Michigan would close down due to this amount of snow, we fully expect schools, government offices, and many businesses to be closed today. We even rescheduled Ceilidh's (our Springer Spaniel) haircut at the groomer.

If this happens again in three weeks, I'll worry. Right now, though, our baby seems to be staying put. He/she was pretty active yesterday and even gave me some lazy kicks this morning while I was trying to go back to sleep.

My ankles continue to swell. Mark does this magic acupressure thing that takes the swelling away almost immediately, but it returns as soon as I spend more than 10 minutes on my feet. While this is normal in pregnancy, I'm taking it as a sign that my body is just about done with this whole pregnancy thing and I'm trying my best to rest more. I went nowhere on Sunday and spent most of the day in bed watching movies and doing crossword puzzles/sudoku. I've basically finished the major projects I wanted done before the baby arrived, so I feel fairly comfortable with my new life of leisure. Sure, there's always more to be done, but it can all wait a few months or even a few years. We're even looking into hiring cleaning help for the next two months or so. What luxury!

It's now 5:30 a.m. PST. I'm heading to the kitchen to make coffee and see how much of the snow survived overnight. Mark had promised to drive me up island to Mount Washington to see the snow before the baby's born, but now we won't have to!