Ferocious Snow

Okay, so today I walked to the gym as usual. It was drizzling lightly and there was light hail, but otherwise no major weather conditions happening.

A couple of hours later, I was in the locker room getting dressed to leave and saw snow falling through the tops of the frosted glass windows. So I decided to check it out and opened the window to see HUGE SNOWFLAKES coming down hard and an ankle deep blanket of snow already on the ground. SHIT!! Of all the days I chose NOT to wear my cute new Sorel waterproof boots! :(

I got all bundled up and hit the road. Luckily, I'd worn knee socks under my workout pants and I had a hooded jacket! They had closed the intersection and there were two empty buses right in the middle of the street where I guess they'd made everyone get off and hoof it. They let a couple of cars go by but they were trying to plow the snow and throw down the salt. The snow on the street was at the same level as the sidewalk so it was all just one big street of white. I stopped to take a photo with the Blackberry of the same spot that I posted just last week. You can't see the super crazy snow coming down but it was nuts!

It was kinda fun to make tracks through the fresh powder but after 10 minutes, I was done with that. Got home and took a ton of pics of our back terrace covered in snow. Then I went out and made a snowman complete with a carrot nose. But he fell over and is dead now. oh well. JP got home around 9:30pm (terrible traffic) and told me that they haven't had a snow storm like this since 1996. crazy.

Our tree 2010

I forgot to post the picture of our new fake xmas tree. It's cute, right? (sorry, I didn't rotate the photo)

We decided to go faux for a few reasons:

1) JP says that we saved one tree from being killed in the forest
2) I still found dried pine needles from last year's tree up 'til a couple of months ago
3) I won't be going back to France until mid-January and I didn't want to come home to find a dried up Charlie Brown tree with all our ornaments dangerously sagging on it. (cuz you know boys don't clean up and put away glass ornaments, etc like girls do)

Anyhoo...je present notre sapin de Noel! ta-da!

Oh sapin de Noel, oh sapin de Noel...how lovely are your (stiff plastic) branches (that smell like nothing)....lalalalalala :)

December snow!

Ding-Dong December is finally here!

The fall leaves of November were really nice, and yeah, experiencing "real sweater weather" was cool. But now, the bitter cold has begun to set in and me no likey the weather so much.

I've been walking to the gym almost everyday, because cold weather equals hungry carb eating Grace, which in turn equals 10 lb heavier Grace. (Don't get me started on how it sucks that you can workout super hard and lose 2 lbs and then gain 10 lbs in like a week! ARGH.) Anyhoo, It's a 20 minute partial up-hill trudge where I play the "dodge the fresh smashed dog shit on the sidewalk" game. Incredibly fun and good for foot-eye coordination. I decided to show you part of my walk but have chosen to omit the scary post-workout pic of me in my not-so-sexy winter walking gear. You know how the internet is...it lives forever.
So, at the top of the hill yesterday, even though it was the coldest day yet, I decided to take a different (and longer) path home and look what I found! Giraffe's artful cousins! (reference to my first post with Fontenay street art) Unfortunately little giraffe has been paved over by some rock work and no longer exists. All that's left is a single heart on the sidewalk in front of the wall he used to be on. Hopefully, you'll enjoy some of these in his honor. R.I.P. little giraffe.