The Blizzard of 21

 Winter came to central Texas with a BANG!   

First snowfall

On last Sunday, Valentine's Day, we hit a low of 12 degrees.    Hasn't been above freezing since.   Got down to a record 7 degrees.   For Central Texas, this is COLD!!!!   It snowed.   It iced.   Brrrrr.

Haven't gotten out of the house in 5 days.   Power went out for about 8 hours, then on for 2, then off for about 30.   Water treatment plant went down, so if you got water through the pipes, you had to boil it.  

What an experience. 

Now, I've been in the snow before.   In Colorado.   In Utah.   On a mountain in Spain.   But the only snow I've seen here before was barely a dusting.       

Now I have an actual snowdrift in my front yard.

After the first day, I noticed that the cold water in my kitchen wouldn't come out.   I deduced that the problem was in my storage closet, where the bare lines to the water softener are.  An online neighbor walked me through heating the lines by tying a heating pad to them.   After an hour, the water flowed.  Then I insulated them with a bed pillow and some toweling and opened the door between the pantry on the other side of that wall and the kitchen.  It's hard for me not to close that door and the kitchen cabinets, but I worked hard at doing so.    

The lever on those pipes will turn off the water to the whole house. 

It should thaw in a couple of days.   Hope my outside faucets didn't freeze and break the pipes.   Only time will tell.    

After several bouts of sleet and snow

I shoveled a path to the garage.
Short, but the first one I ever did in my life.