Snow-covered chaos

I worked today. I checked the weather report online last night before going to bed, and it said it might snow late tonight. I didn't check it again in the morning.

I should have.

It started snowing about mid-day. To those of you who live up north, I'm sure this is no big deal, but down here in Texas, we freak out. The school district decided (foolishly, in my opinion) not to close school early. Instead, by keeping the schools open, they caused a major headache for the office and teachers. Parents were arriving in droves to pick up their kids early. The office was was working like crazy to track down all those students. When the bell rang to change from 7th to 8th period, it appeared that only about a third of the students were left. And the ones who were left were restless. I only had 4 students (should have been 8, and soon down to 3), and it was hard to keep even a tiny group focused.

Because I didn't check the weather this morning, I was dressed for the weather as it was this morning, which was just chilly and gray. I was wearing a knee-length skirt with tights, and my only coat was a wool jacket that dressed up my outfit. No gloves, no long coat, and only dress shoes on my feet, I had to scrape all this:



But the trees looked lovely as I drove past:



To make matters worse, my gas light was on. I knew about this, as I'd meant to fill up the car yesterday, but as I didn't go anywhere, I forgot. I didn't have time before work, and I knew it would be no problem to do it after. But I didn't count on the weather. I didn't factor in the possibility of having to sit with the car on defrost while I worked for 10 minutes to get the piles of snow off my car. I didn't factor in getting stuck in a one-lane road behind a VW that refused to go faster than 10 mph, even though it was only snowy and not icy.

Thankfully, I made it to the gas station, then home. Whew!