Flip flop

Posted on November 28, 2011 by Sherry

The weather has been so weird lately. And really, I don’t mean to be your stereotypical Canadian who talks all about the weather, but I can’t help it, it’s just what I do. I talk to everyone about the weather – family, friends, co-workers, clients, whomever – and I love weather. I often think I missed my calling and that clearly I should have been a meteorologist.

Or a storm chaser, one or the other.

Anyway, since I am not an actual meteorologist, I just enjoy discussing it and I chronically shush the kids when the weather segment comes on the morning news. Also, one of my most-used apps on my phone is my weather app.

(Okay, that’s not true. It’s probably my camera. Or possibly the IMDB app. But you get my drift.)

The weather here has been nuts the past little while. Last week we got buried in snow and while it wasn’t obscenely cold it was damp enough that it was really cold just standing around waiting for the bus. The it warmed up enough over the weekend that most of the snow melted, much to the disappointment of the kids.

Today it was actually so warm that I left my warm winter coat and heavy Harry Potter scarf in the cupboard and brought out my lighter fall jacket with my flimsy scarf. The winter boots were left downstairs by the back door and my shoes were back on my feet instead of carried in my bag to work. We hit double digits in temperatures today.

The next few days are supposed to be filled with rain I believe.

This maritime weather is weird. I’m okay with it, but mighty weird I say!

Transit turmoil

Posted on November 23, 2011 by Sherry

Good lord. What a day. I (apparently foolishly!) believed that I’d be okay for getting to work and back today because of my shift and the fact that I don’t travel during rush hour. HAHAHA. Yeah right. It didn’t look so bad when I left for work this morning when I snapped this photo.

Except I then proceeded to wait for over 40 minutes for a bus that should have been there five minutes after I arrived at my bus stop. Then we had such slippery conditions that we essentially slid all the way down a steep hill (which was as terrifying as it sounds and I think it’s a strong testament to my commitment to my job that I didn’t immediately get off and take the other bus back home) and the driving was very slow from there on out. They also ended up closing streets and re-routing bus lines so that in the end what should normally be a 40-minute commute from my front door to the office ended up taking almost two hours. I was 20 minutes late but I wasn’t the only one so it was no big deal.

I was glad to be at work because we had a big company event this afternoon, however leaving work ended up being no better than trying to get there this morning. I walked with a co-worker to the bus terminal where we waited for one of our two buses and none ever came. A friendly bus driver on a different route offered his bus to the two of us and four other people waiting so that we could get out of the cold until his shift started. We all sat on the bus chatting (yes, we’re Maritimers, all sitting around talking to total strangers, perfectly comfortable!), and then in the end we decided to just take that bus to the next terminal rather than standing out in the freezing rain and cold for our usual bus choices.

Once at the terminal we stood inside a (warm, thankfully) shelter for what felt like eons, waiting for one of our buses to finally come. I’m pretty sure we saw every single bus on the Halifax side go by except one that would take us home.

Just when we were starting to give up any hope at all, a girl that we had met while sitting at the first terminal came running over, happy to see we were still there. She said she was fed up and was taking a cab home, and did we want to split the cost and go with her. It turned out she lives just up the street from me and my friend from work lives about two minutes past her so we immediately agreed, hopped in the taxi she had called, and I was home about five minutes later.

All in all, I finished work at 8:30 and got home at 10:05. Had we not taken the taxi I doubt we would have been home until at least 10:30. I have never been so happy to come home and change into flannel pajamas and a fuzzy robe.

Here’s hoping that tomorrow is a better weather and commuting day.

Time to break out the winter boots

Posted on November 22, 2011 by Sherry

After a fairly mild fall season our temperatures have been dropping including mornings like this one where it was only -5C* and as of tomorrow we’ll be hitting the real “winter is coming” milestone. According to the weather reports – and the weather warnings – we’re slated to get anywhere from 15 to 30 centimeters of snow across our area.

I’m not thrilled, and I’m sure that’s no surprise. Despite all my years of living in this country I still can’t seem to embrace the winter season but it’s inevitable that it will hit us at some point. At this point I’m really grateful for the fact that I work an off-shift. The morning should be okay, I don’t think it’s supposed to start snowing until the afternoon. However, having seen how everyone forgets how to drive the second a few flakes fall from the sky I know that the rush hour traffic on the way home could be a bit of a nightmare. By the time I’m on my way home it should have died down and most people will be at home and hopefully just staying there so that we can get where we’re going.

Winter boots for everyone tomorrow!

*Despite the fact that it was cold out I saw a kid run by in SHORTS. If it was someone jogging it would have been excusable but it was just a random kid. If one of my kids tried to get out of the house in shorts in this kind of weather I’d flip out and make them change!

Creating fun in the snow

Posted on February 11, 2011 by Sherry

As I’ve mentioned once or twice (or 853 times) in the past, I’m not a big fan of winter. I’m not fond of the staggering oppression of the humidity in the dead of summer here in Montreal either, but right now it’s winter that is dragging on. Admittedly the season wasn’t too bad for quite some time. While snow buried areas to the west, the east, and all across the states, we barely had snow at all throughout most of January.

Then it’s like someone woke up and said, “oh right, winter in Montreal!” and threw a ton of snow at us over the past week or so. It still hasn’t been all that bad but it just seemed like it was coming down non-stop for awhile.

It would be easy for me to sit around and grumble about how much I want it all to melt and how fed up I am now of snow, but it doesn’t really do much good in the end. Regardless of how I feel about it, it’s still going to be there and I still need to go out in it. The only way to survive winter with your sanity intact is to try to enjoy it as much as you possibly can.

Last weekend we went out with our friends on a Saturday night to see some fireworks at a Winterfest that we had heard about. It was a bit chilly but not too bad and we enjoyed some pretty sights and hot chocolate.

Just as we were leaving the snow started coming down; while we visited with our friends at their place it turned into a raging blizzard and the roads were pretty nuts when we headed home at midnight. The upside to all the snow was that it provided further opportunities for winter fun.

For instance, once they plowed the parking lots, we were left with several large, high mounds of snow which provided a fun spot for sledding mere steps from our door.

Meanwhile the park is all but hidden under all the snow which doesn’t make for great walking (ah, if only I had snowshoes!) but it was great fun for a bounding Border Collie mix.

As for me, well… in the words of Tara Stiles you can do “yoga anywhere”. Even up on top of a great big mound of snow.

(The heavy winter boots and multiple layers sure do make balancing a whole new challenge though!)

So I’m trying. Still. How long until spring? I want to enjoy some mild weather before I start grumbling about the humidex.

(More photos over here)

Getting scientific on a stupidly cold morning

Posted on January 24, 2011 by Sherry

Here’s the thing. I’m Canadian and I have been Canadian my whole life. Not only that, I live in Montreal which is an area of the country known for brutally cold winters and large amounts of snow. I’m used to it in the sense that this is just the way our weather is. Our summers make you melt with the humidity and our winters make you wonder what settlers were thinking when they looked around this stupid frozen tundra and said, “yep, looks like home to me!”

That doesn’t mean I like it. I’ve always said that I live in the wrong place because I’m not a fan of extreme temperatures. I like hot summer days but I don’t like suck-out-your-will-to-live humidity. I don’t mind a little cold and some snow but I don’t like days where your nose freezes shut five seconds after you walk out the door.

The latter is what we’re dealing with today. This morning it was -36C which is the equivalent of -32F for those of you who have not yet embraced the metric system. It doesn’t matter which system you use, it all translates to “bloody fucking cold” in Celsius and Fahrenheit alike. In the short time I was outside today my thighs were so cold that it took a good 20 minutes for them to warm up.

Hydro Quebec was also asking people to please not overuse electricity in order to not over-tax the power grids because obviously no one wants a power failure on a day like this. I laughed when I heard that because yes, it’s important to turn off lights that you aren’t using and maybe wait a bit before running major appliances but convincing people not to jack up the heat isn’t going to happen.

Anyway! The other day I saw this video of a woman up in Yellowknife (that’s in the Northwest Territories in case you were wondering) on a -30C day. She took boiling water and threw it into the air where it instantly turned into steam. I mean INSTANTLY.

I figured if our weather today must be stupidly cold I might as well get some enjoyment out of it. I tried it too, although I didn’t feel like bundling up myself and Breanna to go outside. We ended up just throwing it out the window in the stairwell instead and it totally worked. Luckily George is home so he came with us and held the camera.

Can we fast forward to spring now?

A day outdoors in the crazy weather

Posted on December 12, 2010 by Sherry

The weather was a little bi-polar up here today. This morning it was snowing and it was actually the kind of snow that I like, with the big, fat flakes that float down slowly. It was also quite warm out. We had planned our Advent activity today to be sledding but I wasn’t sure how that would work out since they were calling for at least two hours of freezing rain in the afternoon. In the end George said we should go anyway so we set it up with our friends to meet at a nearby park and after a tasty brunch (George fried up some bacon then made us egg and cheese “McMuffins”, yummy) we were suited up in our snow suits and in the van.

I’m so glad we went. When we got there it was overcast but nothing more than that and the temperatures were still holding at reasonable levels. We were there for an hour and a half and in that time we also saw some mixed precipitation (that’s a mix of snow and rain for those of you who aren’t well-versed in Canadian winters), followed by ice pellets (a little painful on the face while zipping down a hill on a saucer but bearable), then just overcast skies again. Right as we were leaving there was a light pattering of rain and then that cleared up before we even got home.

Despite the weird transitional weather we had so much fun. The ice pellets lasted all of 15 minutes so I’m glad we didn’t change our plans based on the forecast. This is the second time in a row that a forecast has been wildly wrong. Last week they said to expect about 5 centimeters of snow and we got over 30. This week they warned of a 25 centimeter storm, then changed to a bit of snow and the freezing rain, and we ended up with little to worry about. Silly meteorologists!

I love sledding and other than a few minutes of break time here and there I pretty much spent the whole time going up and down the hill. We were four adults and four kids, plus we spent some time swapping sleds with another dad and his two sons, so it was pretty much a blast. Definitely a great Advent idea!

Full set over here.

Winter throws down the gauntlet!

Posted on December 7, 2010 by Sherry

Well, it would appear that winter has most certainly arrived in Montreal. Yay?

Walking was a total nightmare since this city doesn’t give much of a hoot about the pedestrians who live here. They kept sending plow after plow up the street but none on the sidewalks. When I was walking out there with Hayley there came a point where I was up over my knees (and my boots; thank GOD they’re at least as high as they are!) and I was grateful that Hayley’s tall for her age because as it was she was almost hip-deep. We eventually had to venture out on to the (busy) street to get around a huge drift and I was nervous about it since you can’t count on drivers here to handle the slippery streets very well no matter how long they’ve lived here.

So that was fun. But Winnie had a blast! She was born in March so I assume that she didn’t see much snow, if any last year. We had a few little dustings recently that she enjoyed but this was probably her first real snowfall and she went pretty much ballistic out there. It’s a shame she doesn’t have a reliable recall or I would have set her loose in the field across the street just to see her go.

Later when Hayley came home she asked if we could go out to play and despite my best efforts I couldn’t think of a good enough reason to say no so out we went. The kids had fun (even though one of Breanna’s boots kept coming loose and falling off in deep patches of snow) and I took the dog out too. We found a frozen soccer ball in the middle of all the snow and apparently Winnie is quite the soccer player.

I’ve never been a fan of winter but I survived nonetheless. I’d better get used to it since Environment Canada is predicting a lot more snow than last year. Sigh.

On dogs and damp weather

Posted on October 21, 2010 by Sherry

Life with a new dog has been working out quite well. We’re getting used to each other and have settled into a fairly predictable routine. I really couldn’t imagine a better dog for our family. She’s still a puppy so we do have a few bad habits to break, but nothing that is really major.

For one thing, she loves shoes. I’ve never seen her actually chew them, mind you. She just goes over to our shoe rack by the door and she’ll pick one up (she’s particularly fond of a slip-on pair that Hayley wore in the summer and which need to be tossed since they’re too beaten up to save or donate), carry it into the living room, and lie down to lick it. I don’t want her to keep that habit though because I’m sure eventually licking would turn to chewing. Besides, I don’t want to be running around early in the morning with one shoe on while frantically searching for the other one. Luckily she’s pretty good when I say, “No!” and she drops it.

Her other bad habit was begging and it was pretty intense so I think she was used to sharing snacks and getting scraps from the table. What’s good is that she’s smart and pretty eager to please so she’s gotten a lot better. We’ve taught her to stay out of the dining area when we sit down to eat which is much better.

When we first got her, the girl told me that she was used to sleeping in a crate at night and being in there when she was left alone but I was warned that she would usually bark for a couple of minutes to voice her protest and then she would settle down. That’s why the girl wanted to make sure we were allowed dogs in our apartment because people would hear her now and then.

It did indeed happen for the first two or three days but I managed to make her more accepting of the cage. I can tell she still doesn’t love going in there, especially during the day when she’s wide awake – it’s always easier at night when she’s tired anyway. However, I stuffed some cushions in there for her to lie on so it’s very cozy and I took a cue from something I read recently and started casually tossing dry kibble in there from time to time. Eventually she would walk by and smell it, and when she’d walk in to investigate she’d find food so she made a positive association with the cage. When it’s time for her to go in, either because we’re heading out or because it’s time for bed I just throw a bacon treat in there and tell her “go get your cookie!” She always gives me a LOOK, almost like she’s saying, “listen, I know what you’re making me do and you kind of suck but FINE, those are tasty so I’ll go.” Then she wags her tail and heads in. The barking has stopped; she doesn’t make a peep once she’s in, so that’s amazing progress considering she had been doing it daily for months and I got her to stop in only a few days.

It seems as though she’s learning her name. Before I could call out “Winnie!” and she wouldn’t really react. Then again, I could also call her by her old name and it had the same (lack of) effect. Now I find that she responds about 80% of the time, so that’s better. I think it’s entirely possible that she does know her name now and when she ignores me it’s because there’s something much more interesting going on.

The best thing is watching her with Breanna. Breanna was the biggest target when we had Pearl and it was almost impossible for her to play with her at all. Now that we have Winnie, Breanna has a furry best friend. They play tug of war, she’s been teaching Winnie to “find it” with rawhide sticks (it’s amazing to see my not-quite-five-year-old training a dog!), and they chase each other around. Our living room, kitchen, and dining area all open onto each other so you can essentially travel in a circle from one room to the next; Breanna will run one way and Winnie will run the other way, then they turn and race back the other way. Other times they just run around and around in circles, Breanna laughing hysterically. When they’re both tired, Winnie will crash out on the rug in the living room and Breanna will lie down with her head on the dog’s belly. It is ADORABLE and exactly the way it should be with kids and their dogs.

Hayley is enjoying having a kid-friendly dog too. Winnie doesn’t jump when you walk in the door but she does run right over to greet Hayley when she gets home from school and she likes to play lap dog with her. Hayley is also thrilled with the run-around-chasing game so that gets picked up again.

Between both the kids playing with her and the walks with me, Winnie is the laziest energetic dog I’ve ever seen. Yes, when we’re outside she’s raring to go (though after one particularly long walk in the woods she actually sat down on a lawn on the way back home and stared at me like she thought maybe I could carry her the rest of the way) and when she plays with the kids she’s ecstatic but then in between those times I frequently find myself looking around for her, only to find her passed out cold on the floor, sound asleep. It’s a good mix.

As for me, that dog follows me everywhere I go. I actually tiptoe past her when she’s asleep just so she won’t wake up and jump up. Even if I’m just going around the corner to another room for a second, she comes too. If I have the baby gate up to block the bedrooms (at night when the kids are sleeping) and I climb over to get something, she’ll sit and wait until I come back. She loves me and that’s fine by me.

She’s also quite protective. While she’s extremely gentle and even the kids can feed her because she’s not prone to trying to grab the dish, apparently she is very On Guard when it comes to her home and her people. We’d only had her for less than a week when she was lying in the hall by the front door. Somehow none of us locked it when Hayley got in from school so when the door at the top of the stairs opened, the draft blew our door open just a crack. All Winnie knew was that her four people were inside with her, the door was open, and she could hear someone out in the hall. Despite her short time with us, she immediately jumped to her feet and started barking and growling, putting herself in between us and the door. No one was getting inside without our okay, let me tell you! That made me rather happy.

So yeah. Great dog. We all love her.

In other news, this damp weather is sucking. Rain is supposed to be a regular feature in the spring, not the fall. And yet we’ve been getting quite a bit of it lately and even on the days that it doesn’t rain I find it pretty damp, at least early in the day.

Today was my first day back up at the breakfast club at the school and it was pouring when I got up. Let me tell you, nothing makes you want to crawl back under the comforter for the rest of the day quite like that. My alarm blared at 5:30 am and it was still pitch black outside which was bad enough. Add in the rain and it was just UGH. Once I got up and got to the school it was fine. I wondered if I’d forget all the things I had to do but it wasn’t too hard to get back into the swing of things and I really do love doing it.

On that note, between my early morning and the chill in the air I think it’s time for a nice hot cup of coffee.

If you need me I'll be in the corner melting…

Posted on July 5, 2010 by Sherry

This week it seems that summer has reared up upon its back legs and screamed, “I am here!” At least that’s what I’m guess based on the eyeball-melting temperatures that are in this week’s forecast. Observe:

wtf

For instance, on my birthday (which is this coming Wednesday), it’s supposed to go up to a Humidex of 43C or 109F. What the hell is up with that? I was thinking I would celebrate my birthday with a nice birthday pie (much better than cake) but instead I might just spend the day hanging out in the freezer.

Can’t we just have nice, moderate weather up here? Does Canada really need to be a country of extremes when it comes to weather?

If anyone is looking to get me a birthday present, you could get me a personal cooling device or something similar. Or a giant bag of ice.

Vacation in Iqaluit?

So anyway, if you’re wondering where I am, I’m pretty easy to find since I’m frequently found lurking close to our only partly useful air conditioner.

*******

On the other hand, at least I have appropriate hot weather shoes – check out my NAOT review for killer sandals!

Winter joys make the season better

Posted on January 3, 2010 by Sherry

I will probably never be able to say that I love winter. I used to like it more when I was a teenager and cross-country skied. I learned how to ski downhill at one point too and I loved that as well but the chair lifts always scared the hell out of me and I missed cross-country trails.

I do know that making yourself have fun out in the snow and cold – even if it’s in the middle of a bit of a snow storm as it was yesterday – is a fine way to make the loooong winter season (yes, I *am* Canadian, we get a whole ton of winter) a little more bearable.

I do want to teach the kids to cross-country ski at some point, maybe starting with a rental before investing in any equipment of our own; I had some excellent skis, boots, and bindings but they were lost when my grandmother sold her house so I’ll have to start from scratch too. Still, my dad taught me when I was five on those big plastic skis and I loved it for well over a decade.

Yesterday was not the day for new beginnings though so we went sledding instead with one of our friends and his daughter. There’s a nice hill in a nearby park and because it’s not a HUGE hill it’s a) perfect for smaller kids and b) doesn’t have so many people that you need to line up to go down it.

I was a bit apprehensive because the first (and last) time that Breanna went sledding she was utterly unimpressed. That’s actually putting it mildly. She hated it and lasted for two runs before she refused to sit on a sled ever again.That was two years ago though, so I was hopeful.

Yeah right. That kid LOVED sledding. Both Hayley and Breanna had a blast with their friend, and I must confess that the three adults had just as much fun. There’s not much else that can help you regain your youth like throwing yourself down a hill, shrieking like a loon. Well, regaining your youth until you realize you’re kind of achy later. But it was fun!

We only stayed for a little more than an hour because it was not only snowing, it was really windy as well, plus the kids got tired. Hayley and her friend went back to their place for the rest of the day and George, Breanna, and I stopped at his parents’ house for hot chocolate and warmth.

Like I said, I will never wake up and say, “holy crap, look at all that snow and ice, winter totally rocks!” Never. But at least days like yesterday make me remember that it can indeed be a fun season, especially when you’re a kid.

(See the full set of photos over here.)

Chaos Theory

Category Archives: Weather