Winter weather can be beautiful. Ice and snow on bushes that have Christmas lites looks so nice. A yard covered in snow before the first person steps in it can give you such a warm feeling.

Winter weather can be so exciting. Not many things excited me more when I was a kid than an evening/nighttime snowstorm. The thought of a snow day from school kept me checking the window, watching for the snow, praying for the snow. I would listen to the radio early in the morning hoping to hear my school's closure.

Winter weather can suck. To quote Wayne in Wayne's World...suck sperm whale. For you see, a combination of ice, snow, and strong winds can bring down a large tree like its a liliac bush.

Which brings me to my day today. Last night a nasty ice storm hit us. We ended up losing our power for a while. When it came back on, most of the kids wanted to just sleep in the living room. Early this morning, I awoke to hear wind blowing at 40-50 mph. At about 6:30, one of the older kids runs into our bedroom and announces that school was cancelled. A quick glimpse outside indicated that the ice had changed to snow, and we had a condition of white-out.

YES!! No school, and I would work from home. As I settled back into bed a thought crossed my mind. "Wow, that wind is blowing strong." Mrs. WHW commented that, when she was growing up on the farm, there would be winds blowing so strong they would shake her bed.

Not more than 5 minutes after she said that, a sound much like a train being driven through our house started. The tree across the alley from our house dropped. In the process of dropping, it took a chunk of our house with it.

We spent the day cleaning up some of the mess, calling insurance people, and just wondering what the heck happened. Oh, how many days until spring???????

Here's what it looks like: