It started snowing here around 11 AM. It was also cleaning lady day, so I needed to clear out with
daisy_knotwise when it was time to pick up Julie from preschool and head out to McDonald's for lunch. I volunteered to pick up Julie while Gretchen dropped off the library books that were due so that she didn't have to deal with more snow later.
By the time I was heading back from lunch (having left Julie at McD's with Gretchen), it was pretty slick, enough so that I called and warned Gretchen to be careful on the road. Later that afternoon, I went to pick Katie up from school, because my car has all-wheel drive and Gretchen's doesn't. This was made more entertaining by the latest failure of the crossing gates on our street, which had left them stuck in the down position, requiring me to turn around and circumnavigate the failed gates.
Despite the lousy weather, I suggested that we adhere to our original plan of running over to Sweet Baby Ray's for dinner since:
It wouldn't mess up the clean kitchen.
Tuesday is "Kids eat free night"
We got out early, a bit after 6 PM. Very few people were there -- pretty much all parents with kids. :) And the food was good.
As we headed out just after 7 PM, we saw the recently posted sign on the door, announcing that they were closing at 7 PM because of the weather.
I guess it was good we went to dinner early! :)
I don't recall the whole circumstances, but I ended up staying home with The Kid (who we'd only had custody of for a few months at that point) instead of dropping him off at daycare and heading into work.
At that time, we lived in Wheaton in a house with a detached garage. This was before I'd given up and engaged the services of a lawn care/snow plow service, so I was responsible for clearing the driveway. So, I left The Kid in the house watching TV or some such, and got the snow blower going.
What I'd forgotten was that the house cleaners were due that day. While I was out clearing the driveway, sidewalks (both in front of the house and to the side - corner lot) and the walk between the garage and the back porch, the cleaners showed up and started working. I'm not sure that they even really noticed that there was a five-year-old in the house, nor that I showed up in the middle wearing snow-covered clothes. I, on the other hand was a bit startled to reenter the house only to find people there I didn't know where there.