Is Winter Over?

This picture was taken on January 12th, pretty much the last time we saw the sun and clear blue sky.

 This has been a brutal January as far as weather goes. First we get the biggest snowstorm we have had since we moved here in 1998, and the first snow day my kids have ever had.  This whole month we have been experiencing the third coldest January on record, with the average daily temperature being well below freezing.  I have even resorted to wearing a coat, and that is saying something.  We have had icicles all over our house and on our front porch that we have repeatedly knocked down-wouldn't want anyone to be impaled by the killer icicle.  And because of said icicles on our front porch that drip during the day, we have created Home Alone stairs up to our door.  We finally bought our first container of Ice Melt ever.  We have never really had an issue with ice because our house faces southwest, and the sun has always done the trick before.  Then we have also had day after day of this wonderful thing they call an inversion.  I think that is way too nice of a name for it.  The air smells like exhaust, you can't see the mountains, it makes you cough and feel like you can't get a deep breath.  It blocks the sun from ever really shining and is just basically miserable, but I'm not complaining.  Then if all this wasn't enough, on Thursday morning we woke up to freezing rain.  Want to know how often we have freezing rain around here, almost never.  Last time was basically 30 years ago.  Solid sheet of ice everywhere.  It took my daughter just a little over an hour to get to school on the bus, and the school is ten minutes away.  My daughter got home from school saying she had fallen three times just getting home.  My youngest thought it was the coolest thing ever, skating everywhere without ice skates.  The icy roads caused school to start two hours late on Friday (Friday was nothing compared to Thursday though, should have started school late on Thursday instead.  Oh well can't expect people who never have seen freezing rain except for in Nebraska to know what to do with it.) The worst part of  the ice though was that my Dad fell while getting his garbage cans.  Now if it would have been me, I would have just left the garbage cans (I didn't even get the mail, I made Grant get it when he got home from school) but my Dad never leaves a job undone.  It's an amazing quality that he has.  If there is something to do, then you just do it.  He has always been that way.  I mention my peach tree needs pruning and the next day he shows up and prunes it, it's just the way he is.  But, I digress.  He went out to put his garbage cans away and slipped and fell on the ice.  Gratefully a nice man saw him and helped him get up and back into the house, but my Mom knew he was in bad shape because he was so pale.  Of course being the tough guy that my Dad is, he said he didn't need to go to the doctor, and refused to go the emergency room. (Understand that one, I go to great lengths to avoid doctors).  Tony took him and my Mom to the doctor Friday morning though where he learned that he had broken his collar bone and the upper part of his arm right by his shoulder. Gratefully no surgery is needed and it was his left arm, but he will be in a sling for a minimum of 6 weeks, probably 8. The other good news is that we are supposed to get a storm that will clear the inversion by Monday and in the forecast we have multiple days above 30! Woohoo!