Selenay's Ramblings

Apparently tonight we're getting our first significant snowfall, possibly up to 15cm. We've had odds and ends of snow already, starting in November, but nothing enough to require shovelling.

So far.

I'm hoping they're wrong. This wasn't even in the forecast yesterday evening! They only added it to the forecast overnight (and then they sent out special weather statements in scary red bars at the top of all the weather apps, probably because they're so late forecasting it) so I don't feel prepared, even though I actually am.

*sigh*

I just have to get through this winter, and then I won't have to deal with quite this level of snow and awfulness any more. Not that England doesn't ever have snow, but it's a rarity rather than an inevitability that you wait for and get nervous about when it doesn't come. Mostly because the later it starts, the worse it is as nature tries to provide you with all the usual snow in a shorter period.

Apparently it will warm up and rain a bit later in the weekend, so hopefully the snow isn't going to pile up too badly too early.

So, this weather bomb that's hitting the US is going to reach us in Canada in a couple of hours. Any weather system that uses the term "explosive cyclogenesis" seems like a really bad idea. There are snowfall, rainfall, wind, and storm surge warnings out. In the city I'm in, we're supposed to be getting rain instead of snow, so that's one tiny bit of good news.

The real problem is the wind. It's going to be worse than the storm on Christmas Day that took out my power (due to a large section of utility poles being snapped off and falling across a main road), so the province is warning about wide-spread power outages. The power company has brought in hundreds of people from other provinces to get power restored as fast as possible when it goes out.

I've made all the preparations I can. Usually I do my shopping today, but I did it last night instead and stocked up on batteries while I was out, so all my lanterns and torches should be good for a long time. I've charged all my devices and made sure the battery pack for my phone is charged. This morning I put hot water in a thermos. I filled a cold box with ice blocks, butter, cheese, and milk. If the power is still on when I get home, I'll refresh the water and switch the ice blocks for fresh ones. This way, if the power goes out, I've got the ability to make hot drinks and cheese sandwiches without needing to open my fridge and let all the cold out.

(It's best not to touch the fridge or freezer after the power goes out, to keep them cold for as long as possible.)

Before I went out, I made sure the heating was set to be on all day at a higher than normal temperature. If the power goes out, there will be a fair bit of residual heat in the house, so it shouldn't get uncomfortably cold too fast.

In other words, I've taken every precaution I've learned for surviving a storm like this and the power outages we might get. I've come into work because it was so calm when I was due to leave. At least this way, I can get some work done and I won't be sitting at home, worrying about how I'll keep working if the power goes out. The worst of the wind and rain is supposed to hit this afternoon, so I'll see what's happening later today and make a call on when I leave here to go home.

Living in Canada has taught me a lot about how to cope with bad weather and power cuts. It's knowledge I sort of wish I hadn't needed to learn, but it's something I'll take with me back to England. Weather isn't as bad there, power is a lot more stable (because the power lines are mostly buried!), but it's always good to know what to do when something like this happens, right?

It's April 10th and it hasn't snowed for almost a week and I am SO FREAKING DELIGHTED. The long nightmare is over!

I even wore my red spring coat for the last two days. Can you tell this has been a very long winter?

I got a reminder on my FB that five years ago, I had to shovel snow to go to church on Easter Sunday morning, so it's not the longest winter ever, but it's pretty close. And at least this year, there will be no pre-church snow shovelling according to the forecast (touch wood).

I foolishly remarked at work that I'll be making my own hot cross buns on Friday. I'm off Monday/Tuesday next week, but I sense I'll be making more hot cross buns on Tuesday to feed the hungry coworkers on Wednesday. That snack table we set up before Christmas? Still here. Still getting treats on at least a couple of times a week.

I'm getting close to finishing the novel I've been writing. It might be the best thing I've written--it might even be publishable--but now I've hit the stage where I'm making deals with myself to stay on track because the end is so close and I just want to write something (anything) else.

Actually, I want to write a Berena fic about Bernie going to find Serena and bring her home from her sabbatical. With exotic locations, comedy, and kissing. But I have to finish the novel. So my deal with myself is this: after I finish the novel, I can write the most self-indulgently fluffy Berena reunion fic ever, but the novel has to be finished first.

*puts on determined face*

Me: I checked this thing out of the repository but it won't let me edit it. Is something wrong with the repository?
DBA: Have you tried checking it out to edit it?
Me: ...
Me: It's going to be one of those days, isn't it?

We're forecasted to have a huge snow storm on Sunday. The entire province is ready to cry. We're so far over our snow removal budget that it's become a joke and everyone is worn down by it. Hopefully this will be the last bad one of the season, but I'm not holding my breath.

I've booked a week off over Easter. I'm too worn down and need some recuperation time. My poor, abused back needs some recuperation time.

I'm also going to do Camp Nanowrimo this year, so that week off will give me a chance to get a solid bit of work done. I'm currently reading and making notes on Papercuts so that I can make the larger revisions it needs. I'm pretty sure that I've found the biggest plot issue and I know where to fix it, so that's good. It's a better book than I remember, but not yet good enough to go out on submission. My plan is to make the revisions by the end of the month and send it out to test readers, so I'll be itching for something new to play with in April.

At the moment, I'm pretty sure that I'll be plunging into the revised version of Zombie Circus. The one with the correct main character :-D I've got another novel in outlining stage that I'd like to tackle this year, but it needs more thinking before I start it.

I've also been working up some short stories with an eye to submit to magazines this year as well as querying agents. Even if all I get this year is rejections, I'm making 2015 the year that I throw myself at the publishing thing and see what happens.

Well, I came to work today.

It was a terrifying drive. We've still got a lot of ice pack on the roads from the storm early last week. My little car does not do well on that kind of terrain.

Plan today is to buy cat food and meds on the way home and then review my level of anxiety tomorrow morning. We're supposed to get a bit of snow down overnight, so there's a good chance that I'll conclude my anxiety needs a day off and work from home tomorrow. As long as I get the cat food and meds.

The technique to surviving this weather seems to be grabbing all the supplies on the days it's possible to get out and then just hunkering down and waiting it out until the next semi-not-terrible day.

Hard to believe that two weeks ago we had clear roads and no problems :-(

In less depressing news, tonight I have fic to post. And a big battle scene to choreograph in another fic, after spending last week writing everything except the big battle scene. There are several thousand words of filler that I'll probably chop out during revisions, all written as a procrastination method to avoiding writing the battle. I am so great at this :-D

In case anyone is wondering, I did finally get out of my house. Yesterday.

It involved a kind neighbour checking on me (because he hadn't seen any sign of me on Tuesday when everyone else was out clearing stuff) and bringing his axe to chop away enough ice to get my door open.

Yup, an axe.

And then he helped me chop away enough ice to get my car off the driveway so my plough guy could use his blade to get me a smooth driveable surface. This also involved an axe, multiple shovels, a box of kitty litter, and eventually a second neighbour to help push.

Just...I have never known a winter with this much ice. Nobody else in my office has, either. They were plotting to send a work party out to help me if my neighbours hadn't gathered around yesterday.

(Neighbour who checked on me felt guilty for not checking earlier. D'aw. I suspect he'll be checking on me a lot now. But as he freed me from my house, that's fine. I'll bake his family a big batch of cookies when the weather is less awful.)

Today I made the, frankly terrifying, drive to work. The temps have gone up and it's raining. At least for now. In the evening it's supposed to change to snow and then the temps will drop to -15C, so I'll probably be iced in again by morning. But at least I got to go out for a day. I'm hoping to get to the grocery store on the way home, so if I get stuck for another couple of days, I'll at least have food in.

Spring will happen one day, right?

If only it was just snow. It's the ice that's killing us right now.

It's Groundhog Day here. The whole province is waiting on a groundhog to emerge from its hole and, hopefully, see it's shadow so we can pretend winter is nearly over.

Yeah.

It's like winter saved up all the horribleness for weeks and weeks, and is now trying to dump all of it on us in what remains of winter. I'd really like to just curl up and hibernate until spring.

There's another storm heading in this afternoon. I was feeling just cruddy enough this morning that I didn't feel guilty about deciding to work from home, because being caught in a snowstorm driving home while feeling like crap is not my thing.

Apparently this storm will bring snow and rain, and the temps will immediate plunge to arctic levels so tomorrow's commute will probably be hell because nothing will get cleared before the temps drop. Apparently today's commute around my office isn't much fun because everything is still ice rink-like after the weekend's ridiculous weather combo of rain immediately followed by double digit minus number temps.

So, groundhog, please tell us winter will soon be over. I know we had a really mild start to the winter, but now we're getting slammed every two days and I need to buy groceries at some stage soon.

So, everyone who has been hearing about that huge storm that's going to wallop the eastern seaboard with snow today and tomorrow?

Yeah, it's not stopping at the Canadian border, despite international news reports that always forget about Canada. We're predicted to get at least a foot, with ice pellets and rain at the end, just to make the mess really hard to clear up. Yay us!

I'm buying in the storm chips. Recharging all the devices. Totally working from home tomorrow.

Hoping we get a snow day, so I can watch movies and eat my storm chips.

Hoping my power doesn't go out.

It's going to be fun!

I'm still mildly shocked this is my first big storm of the season. Most of January is already gone. Please can all winters be like this?

*blows dust off the furniture*

Hello! Yes, I aten't dead. Again.

But I have been finding it increasingly difficult to put together anything approaching an actual blog post. One with words and thoughts and so on. It's much easier to chatter on Twitter and reblog stuff on Tumblr and my brain has been on a "do the easier things" setting for most of the winter. There's a lot of reasons for my absence and lack of braining, including (but not limited to):

WINTER - This has been the worst winter since my first one in Canada. So, so cold. So much snow. Constant, unrelenting snow and ice and shovelling and falling over. I've been feeling quite low a lot of the time, with occasional forays into irrational dread when another snow storm is forecast. If we can please not have another winter like this for a few years, that would be great.

If spring could start to show up, that would also be great. It was -15C this morning, before windchill was added. There's another big snow storm predicted for later this week. IT'S FRICKING MARCH.

So yes, winter. My brain got eaten by winter. And also...

Writing - ( Cut for lengthy stuff about writing )

My current plan is to mostly take April off from fanfic and concentrate on an original story. It's something that's been rattling around my brain for a while and I'm reaching the "must write this" stage now. This week I've been writing a short story connected to it, just to get it out of my head, and I'm itching to get to the main piece. I don't know whether it will go anywhere beyond the hard drive of my computer, but I want to try and I'm planning to use Camp NaNoWriMo as the motivation for it. AFter all, the regular NaNo got me mostly through writing a fanfic novel. Hopefully it's baby cousin can keep me on track for something original. At least for the first month, anyway.

(I'm not calling it a novel, in case it gets intimidated and runs away from me before I finish it. Set the bar low and all that.)

If people see me chattering about Zombie Circus, that's what I'm doing. There are no actual zombies in the circus. My working titles only make sense to me :-D

This weekend featured my absolute favourite weather combo ever: snow followed by freezing rain followed by some more snow. IT WAS AWESOME.

I mean that in the most sarcastic way possible, just for clarity.

After all, who doesn't like looking out on a Monday morning to see a foot high ridge of slush from the city plough that is now frozen harder than a rock at the base of their drive? Unsurprisingly, I worked from home yesterday. My plough guy managed to get my driveway somewhat accessible by mid-morning and chipped the ice off my storm door so I could open it. When I could finally leave the car, I got to enjoy scraping frozen rain off my car so I'd be able to drive it today. Man, winter just gets funner every day.

Today I'm at work. This included a mildly terrifying drive down my ice-rink of a street followed by the even more exciting drive down the hill from my street. My little hill ends in a T-junction onto the shore road. If you think that means there's ocean at the bottom of my little hill?

There is.

Hence me being somewhat excessively careful on days like this because if I lose control going down the hill, I don't end up in someone's yard. I end up in the ocean. Fun times!

The good part about this morning was that my car hadn't frozen onto the driveway. Yes, this has happened. No, it's never fun.

Tonight is going to be even more fun. I have to go *up* the little hill and then try to turn onto my street, which will involve turning an uphill corner that is coated in two inches of solid ice. Ha! That's going to be so much fun!

Once again I repeat my winter mantra: Thank fuck for snow tires.

And my other winter mantra: WHEN WILL THIS HELL BE OVER OMG.