Sleet and freezing rain began falling Thursday. Freezing rain is rain that freezes on contact forming a sheet of ice. Sleet is rain that is made up of little tiny ice balls. Together they are a huge mess. This was the view out of my front door Friday morning…

It looks the same today, but with more footprints. It looks like a light snowfall, but it isn't. It's ice. Here’s a close-up of ice balls on the fern (which will be turning brown any minute now) outside our front door…

When it is driven on, the sleet balls compact to form a hard, dense ice.

 When more cars drive on it and/or it melts, it re-freezes to make a bumpy icefield…

Our niece, Rachel, and her husband are driving today from Dallas to Norman, OK. They drove through Sherman on Highway 75 an hour ago—at 20 mph. They didn’t want to get off the highway and I can’t blame them. Steve just got home from a walk to report that a semi is sideways on 75 and the southbound cars are stopped. (Update: Rachel and John got home safely.)

That's the thing about driving on ice. Even if you can do it, you have to worry about the skills (or lack therof) of other drivers. We've made a few ice-drives in our younger years but we would REALLY have to be somewhere to get us to do it now.

It is pretty…

 Also, annoying—for example, the trash cans were frozen shut…

Everything in our area has been cancelled for the weekend. Austin College cancelled classes on Friday. Our church cancelled all services this weekend—and that’s almost unheard of. The Christmas Pops concert will now be in January. Parties, classes, you name it, it’s not happening. What did happen is that on Friday we wrapped all our Christmas presents! I usually do that alone and it was very nice to have Steve helping. I made a cranberry pie (so good!) and we've cleaned house. Mom made oatmeal cookies. (What is it about being iced in that makes us want to bake?)

Steve reminded me this morning (when I thought about going on a walk with him) that I have osteoporosis. A broken hip would be exceptionally bad. I'm staying in. For days, probably, because it's not supposed to warm up enough to melt off until mid-week. This is not all bad.

I can’t tell you how often I wish for days like this. When I can stay home and work and not be interrupted by things that have to be done. So I am going to wind up this post and get to my sewing machine. The temperature outside is not going to get above freezing for any length of time until mid-week. By then I will probably be ready to go outside. Until then, I’m going to get as much done as I can!