Ugh! People. I just can't with people sometimes, and now is one of those times. Why can't there just be compassion and mercy. EMS, Fire, and Police along with tow trucks and MDOT workers are out in this disaster for a nine semi struck pile up on I 94 east of Kalamazoo. NINE. We don't even know how many car may have been involved though we think very few because mostly the traffic has been only essential personnel skating their way to work and semi-drivers whose companies do not give a flip if they die so long as crap makes it from one place to another. I am just entirely weary of the lack of concern for loss of human life, and life shattering injuries. So much selfishness. Right.there.with.you.Gardenmom!

Oh my gosh!!! Epic! I wish I could see it!

Power flickering here. The wind speeds are just epic. I figure it is is only a matter of time before power is out. We can't get to mother in law, the ice is awful, and the winds are unworthy of driving except for the utterly insane, Mad Max kind of people. But, she had a fireplace, and we loaded four days of wood inside, all of it small enough logs to her to handle. She is actually almost looking forward to it because she has two oil lamps she loves to use and enjoys a rip roaring fire. Her cell phone is charged and we left a bunch of fully charged portable batteries with her so she can keep it that way. Christmas music is a click away on her tablet courtesy of our eldest son who was there last Monday and wanted to make sure she was set up well for the storm. She has lots of fruit, dried fruits, nuts, peanut butter and bread, bottled water. She will should be fine. My mom has propane stove that runs without electricity so she can keep her living room and half bath toasty. But, if we went a long time without power, we would put on the cleated boots, drag the sled down there (she can't walk out in this at all), and haul her the two blocks home here. We have the generator ready. House is currently holding at 73° because the wood boiler is doing a great job. Hugs to everyone without power or soon facing it.

Here too. We have power and thankfully so do the elderly mothers, but west of here about 20 miles an entire community of about 1000 people are without power, and DTE has no clue when it will be up. These winds are supposed to continue into tomorrow afternoon, if not the evening, and these are NOT buried power lines hooked to a substation having issues. They can't work on putting power lines UP on poles when it is like this. Linemen will die and folks will still be without power. I worry about everyone in this situation. Police and fire have barricades up to keep folks from entering the town, and running over the power lines or hitting the downed trees because the visibility is just that bad, and there are folks still determined to travel, or worse, required to be at work. The staff of the hospital west of there apparently slept at the hospital last night. Also, there is an article on Yahoo about the Lakota reservation (Badlands, SD) having been hammered now for it appears to be about 8 days with no deliveries to the reservation, and drifting occurring so rapidly that there is no hope of getting supplies to them. Many families are without heating fuel, and are burning clothing and furniture to try to stay warm. One family has a young infant who had been without formula for four days, and isn't old enough to eat solid food. Folks are going hungry at a time when they are burning a huge amount of calories trying to stay warm/alive. I sat and cried. If you go look at the article, do NOT look at the comments. There are white supremacists/racists on there basically saying, well, you can imagine it. I will not reiterate their hate. We need to do a hell of a lot better as a nation! Dear Hive, you are my online family, and you all just need to stay safe please!

We tried to take Lewis for a quick walk around the house. He made it off the back steps, whimpered, and dragged us back to the door. Apparently, though born and raised in Michigan, and possessing a heavy, winter coat, this was just too much for him mentally, and has passed out on my lap.

Poor kitty! She face planted in despair!

I fixed it. Typing on kindle is a pain.

Also, OP, you do you! Seriously. Traditions can be so exhausting to the already grieving, or sometimes they are comforting. Do what is best for your family. If you don't want a dinner afterward, don't have one. If you want to make a direct invitation to a select group of people to eat with you at a specific venue, do that. If you want to be alone, be alone. Done worry about what other people think.

Boy, I think these kinds of traditions can be rather regional as well as religiously linked. So I am just going to speak local to me, and from family culture which is Methodist. No, the funeral party does not converge upon the host family unless a direct invitation is made. All of the contact is at the funeral/memorial service itself even if there is no graveside service. Many folks put on a luncheon or dinner afterward, but the vast majority of the time, that is held at a church, VFW Hall, Moose Lodge, or restaurant. Rarely is it in a private home. When my father died, we did have a few out of town guests who stayed over with my mother (no hotels in my county), and so I provided an evening meal at her home. ETA: It used to be that a lot of funeral dinners were provided by churches. That has gotten expensive and most of the churches here have discontinued the practice of providing the meal. They expect that the family hires their kitchen committee to cater it or find an outside caterer/vendor. It is a shift from what was the norm a decade ago. But for veterans, the VFW Hall provides the meal without cost though often families make a donation to their funeral fund as a show of thanks to the volunteers.

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂💀

Poor Sid!!!! He really needs some skin! 😂

We went to the new Aldi that just opened about 13 miles from here. It was built for self checkout. There is only one cashier line with long conveyor belt. All the other lines are self checkout. We don't go to Wal-Mart anymore. Not only are their self-checkouts very person dirty and so every single time we would use them, we had to get help anyway with the employee usually swearing under their breath at the dumb machines, but even though the vast majority of people are now refusing to use the self checkouts, the manager refuses to hire cashiers. It is the only big box store in the county besides Tractor Supply, and until Aldi opened just two weeks ago, the main grocery store. Yet, there are never more than two cashiers. On a good day, it is a 30 minute wait to check out sometimes more. I cannot imagine what it was like right before the storm. Except for a couple of items, nothing in Aldi was better priced than our Mennonite Bulk Food store which is just over the county line on my side of the county. So I will be shopping there, and they have no self checkouts, and the staff is the happiest, friendliest lot you will ever meet. But, the salad greens were WAY better quality at Aldi so I will be going there once a week, and that will be self checkout. Mark runs once a week to the supermarket near his mom's house to grab items for her, and they have the slowest cashiers you can possibly imagine. Mark is fast at the self checkout and bags the groceries correctly which they do not. I am not kidding when I say that they think nothing of putting a five lb bag of potatoes on top of a bag of tortilla chips! Customer service in other countries is so much better a lot of the time. I thoroughly enjoyed shopping in France, Iceland, and Egypt. Enthusiastic, friendly faces, so helpful. This is saying a lot because I truly, deeply, hate shopping! In Nice, my sister has become good friends with the owners of several of her favorite places like the gluten free bakery, the fabric shop, and the local hardware. To be fair, we have an excellent relationship with the staff of our local hardware. LOL, we have always been the ones to come in and need a collection of items that looks bizarre congregated together on the counter causing them to wonder just what in the world we were doing, and of course it was always crazy engineering projects for our 4H club or rocket team. They told us that they eventually learned that they needed to keep extra 5 minute epoxy and 15 hr JB Weld just for us! 😁 It is nice when those kinds of relationships develop.

Don't do it today! The wind is hideous, in some place hurricane level gusting. The little airport in the county seat here is measuring wind gusts at 75-76mph, and the freeways are iced over so there are numerous near crashes since we always have folks that do not heed the warnings. The next 24 hours is going to howl like this. Please stay safe.

Marine update: We have that best Coast Guard! We really do. I can't say enough good things about the men and women who are C.G. in Michigan! They did a magnificent job assisting marine traffic and they have assisted getting most of the vessels into port. There is one though that can use good thoughts, Kay S. is at anchor off Whitefish pt., Paradise, MI also known as "Shipwreck Point" and for very good reason. Cue the song, Edmund Fitzgerald". She couldn't make it in (yes, ships are shes with mariners) and is at anchor, and this particular location is NOT great. Waved are going to be steady at 20 ft all day around the point with some waves at 26, and the freezing spray began in the wee hours of the morning. On land, we didn't get the snow dump we were supposed to get. Not even close. Nor did Kalamazoo. Ours sons are very frustrated because they could have made it home since youngest's boss sent everyone home at 1 pm yesterday. But all the forecasts called for it setting in on the I94 corridor east of Ann Arbor by 4 pm., and at 2 pm there were some car accidents because of nuts driving at high speeds, recklessly to get where they wanted to go ahead of the storm. I do think the snow portion has just stalled over the lake on the west side, but is still heading this way. Winds are howling steady at 35 -40 mph, and gusts are easily pushing 75 at times. The inch of snow we did get is blowing so hard that visibility is not really a thing outside of town, and it has honed the road to a mirror glaze of ice. There is a pile up on I 75 at the M-46 exit near Saginaw, Mi. Multiple vehicles, and the highway is shut down north bound. It is 9°F and -12 windchill. There are some power shortages north of here on the Bay. So potential tsunami waves coming ashore, potential Cat 1 hurricane force winds up there, negative wind chills, and no power. It will be 1:30pm EST at the earliest before power is restored, and I highly doubt it because the crews are facing wretched ice conditions, and this wind isn't going away any time soon so there will be more power lines down before this is over. I think those folks may be looking at no power all day! So, ya...also, good thoughts for electrical linemen all across this nation today. They, just like EMS, face a fearsome, dangerous work day! We are snuggled down here doing fine. We have checked in by phone with our moms, and they are cozy, sewing, and making cookies. I am laughing about the cookie baking because there are no grandchildren here to eat those things up, and Mark and I do not want to have dozens of cookies forced upon us! I suppose we will take them, and then when the road is passable, run them over to the Moose Lodge that is acting as the only warming center in the county. I am sure they will have folks happy to have them.

I would like to tell the boss, "Go pound sand!" Sheesh

Breakfast - Bagels with peanut butter Lunch - cottage cheese, steamed artichoke, large salad with some roasted chicken on top Dinner - trout that was fire grilled in the wood boiler 😁, spinach and parmesan stuffed portabellas (I am going to be making these a lot because they really hit the spot), mashed potato/carrot blend with Greek yogurt.

Since climate change is going to bring even more extreme weather events, I feel like someone could open a ski lodge on the hill, install a magic carpet, and make some money!

Thank you!

Gardenmom, I remember the first time I was ever in Seattle. Mark, who lived there as a kid during middle school, took me to Queen Anne's hill, and my first thought was, "If they get snow and ice here, this hill would be banned by the Olympic Committee as too dangerous for the Luge!" I would not want to trip at the top of that thing and roll to the bottom.

Update. Dd is NOT a fan of NYC drivers but she did manage to make it to LaGuardia, and they will make it to son in law's parents before the light rain they are experiencing turns to ice because the temp is going to hold for a while. We are relieved. We also predict she will never be tempted to drive in the city again! Here in our part of Michigan we are getting pouring rain, terrible pouring rain and the temp is going to drop 20° overnight so we will wake up to a sea of ice. 😜. Then the snow, and we have five different predictions. I feel like the township supervisor should be running a betting pool. Predictions are 3-7" from one source. 4-6", 6-8", 8-10", and one weather service put it at precisely 11.7" If there was a betting pool, I would take 11.7" simply because I don't feel lucky enough for it to be less than that! Kidding aside, the situation is deteriorating. Just a reminder that the Great Lakes are really more like small oceans, and they have a lot of ocean kind of issues. We have cyclones that have pressure and wind speeds that rival hurricanes, and they produce tsunami waves called meteotsunamis since they are caused by weather and not seismic activities. Waves of 15-20ft + are predicted by the Coast Guard on Lake Michigan, 25ft + for Lake Superior, and 15ft+ and in a couple places 20ft on Lake Huron. These are based on buoy measurements which are notoriously unreliable and often under a measure so the MSU Sea Grant researchers think there will be places at sea which will experience waves pushing 30ft. Freezing spray is predicted which is super dangerous because as it coats the decks of the freighters on open water, mechanical and electrical failures do happen. Capsize warnings are now in effect and while those warnings would normally be small craft advisories, the Coast Guard has upgraded to commercial vessel warnings and by that I mean ocean freighter and cruise ship size vessels because we have a bunch of those that won't make it to port before the Bomb Cyclone hits and produces the freezing spray and tsunami waves. I don't think anything will rival the 1913 Snow Hurricane on Lake Huron at St. Clair that killed 250 people and caused in today's dollars $117,000,000 in damage. However, I do think there is the potential to be worse than Cyclone Huron of 1996. So be thinking of the mariners at sea on the Lakes tonight because they are in for a rough, dangerous night. We would really hope to NOT be adding any ships to the Shipwreck museum at White fish Point!

I am posting this article that goes through the stages of frost how to frostbite. Folks who are not used to frostbite warnings in their area may not be aware of what to look for, and it is important that if you or loved ones are out shoveling, snowblowing, required to do other outdoor work, you are alert and evaluating exposed skin. Many do you in warmer climates will not have face masks, scarves that are windproof, etc. https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/20/health/cold-weather-safety-advice-wellness/index.html Also, for the future: you can make reasonably warm emergency gear from old wool sweaters, even picking up some from thrift stores. Set your washing machine to its hottest water setting and use only half the normal amount of laundry detergent that you would normally use. Wash. Then set the dryer to its hottest setting and allow the sweaters to dry. The fabric is now pretty well air and water tight. You can trace around your hand for the pattern or download a mitten pattern online. I always leave 5/8 inch seam allowance because I line my mittens with lining material or quilters cotton so that the mittens are not icy for people who dislike wool. These mittens are way better than the thin, knit mittens and gloves often available in areas not prone to harsh winter. You can make them pretty cute too if the sweaters have borders on the cuffs or waist/hip line. I make sets from the sleeves first using the wrist cuff as the natural wrist cuff of the mitten. 65% wool can be used, 80% is better. Beanie hats can also be made from the front and backs of the sweater. I always line those too so that the wool doesn't itch on ears. I have also used old wool army blankets from the military surplus for this as well.

I think probably. Rocket City seems pretty dedicated to science and doing things well. Plus with Red Stone Arsenal, I think there is Army Corp of Engineers and DoD influence there was well.

Update on son in law. His flight from Huntsville to Detroit and then to Albany was a total disaster. Left Huntsville on time, and then had an emergency landing in Fort Wayne because they were losing fuel so fast they couldn't make it to Detroit! So not remotely storm related. Fort Wayne is a small, very understaffed airport without much for amenities. He was in line for 1.5 hours before anyone could help him after being on the ground on the plane on the tarmac for an hour waiting for a gate. Needless to say he missed his connecting flight in Detroit. They finally got him on another plane to Detroit, but then there were no more outgoing flights to Albany so he asked for Philly because he had an aunt there that can pick him up. No flights. Everything is a mess because Detroit had a disaster that is the domino effect of a mess at O'Hare. So at 6 pm, 12 hours since he left Huntsville, he will leave Detroit for LA GUARDIA. 3 hr drive from Albany so Dd will do 6 hours of driving to get him back to the house. On top of that, the grandsons are very upset about all of this and are very hesitant to stay with grandma and grandpa (which I did anticipate because unfortunately, that set of grandparents have not gotten to spend very much time with the boys and aren't used to being left with them) and so she has a 7 year old and an almost 3 year old with her on this trip. Son in law had an IT emergency last night so he had to stay up all night fixing it before he left. He hasn't slept since Tuesday night/Wed morning. Delta offered $30 in food vouchers (useless since he has significant food allergies) and $100 towards a future flight. I told him to tell them "No way" and ask to speak to management higher up the chain. This whole mess was their own mechanical failure that could have ended tragically if they hadn't been able to make that emergency landing and had put it down in some Indiana field, on top of which they will go through a lot of gas money with this 6 hr road trip. So I think $1000 cash not as a ticket voucher is appropriate. Does that sound right?

Prime and subscriptions to HBO, Netflix, and Discovery Channel though er are getting rid of Discovery next month. We have not had a t.v. or cable since streaming services became available.

Yes, Hell exists, it is in Michigan (no surprise 😁), and it is on a lake and freezes over annually!