Chuckles Gets Behind the Camera

Yesterday we had snow yet again. It was the third snowfall of significant accumulation that we've had this winter. Extremely uncommon.

Now I'm not complaining about the snow, it's the ice that I have a problem with. It was a very icy snow...a friend of mine compared it to Dippin' Dots.




Chuck woke me up before he left to tell me that the tire I had patched last month was flat again. I dread taking it in to the mechanic because I always feel stupid when I go in that place without him.

So of course I procrastinated like the pro that I am, and waited till almost noon to bring it in. Earlier that morning, my stepdaughter says, "I sure hope we get some snow today! Even if it's just a dusting!"

I had heard that the county adjoining ours was supposed to get it, and I told her we probably wouldn't see much of anything.

I was wrong of course, we ended up getting about 3 inches at my house. And by the time I got my ass in gear to take the tire in, it was pelting those little ice pellets of so-called snow.

I was hoping it wouldn't last long (because it wasn't supposed to in my area), because I had to drive in to work for 4pm.

The snow didn't let up, and indeed got worse. I knew the highway was going to be icy, so I left an hour before I was supposed to be at work.

Yeah. One of the scariest drives I've ever taken. I can't believe that I didn't end up in the ditch or wasn't plowed by someone else.

People were going way too fast for the conditions. I saw 6 people in the ditch on the way to work, and 3 accidents. One of the accidents happened while I was watching.

I have to cross a bridge over a waterway on my way into Jacksonville. There were about four cop cars on the bridge, to force people to slow down. Anyone who has experienced snow and ice can tell you that bridges freeze before anything else. This one truck apparently didn't slow down enough on the bridge going the opposite way, and I saw him do a 180 on the bridge and crash headfirst into the guardrail. Right in the middle of all the cops. He's lucky he didn't hit one of their cars.

I was going 10mph at one point, not even touching the gas or the brake, and my car was fishtailing. A U-Haul was traveling behind me (way too fast) and I saw him fishtailing towards me in my rear-view mirror. I thought he was going to plow me for sure.

About halfway there, I thought I'd have to call out from work, and turn around and go back home. But the other side of the divided highway going back towards my house was WAY worse. The traffic was backed up for miles and miles. A co-worker of mine lives right down the street from me, and she said it took her 3 hours and 20 minutes to get home. So I'm glad I just decided to make the rest of the trip to work. When I came home at midnight last night, it was still nasty in spots, but it wasn't as bad as it had been that afternoon.

I called Chuck on my 15-minute break to tell him of my harrowing drive. He said it took him 2 hours to get home himself. Whilst we were on the phone, he was telling me how gorgeous the sunset was at home. When he got off the phone with me he started taking pictures.

They're AWESOME. I'm sorry I missed such a beautiful sunset. Thank goodness he grabbed the camera.


This is one I took earlier:




And here are his, they're in sequence:
















These last two are my favourites!






I think Chuckles did a good job, don't you?

Heaven's On Fire

All right. So I was getting ready to post some pictures of an amazing sunset that I captured this past summer, and stumbled upon again yesterday.

But now I feel the need to discuss one of my weird blog habits. I touched on it the other day, but will digress and explain myself a little more fully.

Never fear, the sunset is still coming!

The first thing that always leaps into my head for a post title is a reference to a song title, band title or lyrics. It may be obvious, or it may be too obscure for anyone to even notice.

But I know it's there. And I find it interesting that I tend to go for that. It's all Mr. A's fault, he's a bad influence. A random fact about him is that he loves to quote lyrics. All the time. If you have something to say, he rummages through the archives in his 48 year old brain, and comes out of it with a lyric to sing to you in reply. It used to be kind of irritating, but now I treat it like a game. I try and guess what lyric he's going come up with from what I said. Usually I'm right LOL.

Today's post title for example? A KISS tune.

I *cough* used to be *cough* a KISS fan. My halloween costume from 2003:



I did a great makeup job, if I may toot my own horn. *toot*

Mr. A hates KISS. He was a teenager in the 70's, and couldn't stand them even though a lot of kids loved them. I, of course, wasn't born until 1981. So I can appreciate the novelty.

I have this picture hanging on our kitchen wall, so he can see it while he's eating. :D

Wow, that was a tangent, wasn't it? I should have a regular weekly feature called "Tangent Tuesday".

On to the sunset photos! All of these are from stages of the same sunset, completely untouched photos.





Like a complete genius, I snapped these from inside my screened back porch. The sky still looks cool behind the highlighted screen though, so I included 'em anyway :P




These two pics are where I got the title inspiration from. Almost looks like a raging forest fire's going on behind the tree-line.





*sings* "Paint the sky...with desire! Angel fly...heaven's on fire!..."

Hehe.