life after the snowpocalypse

There are, according to Wave 3 News, 375 closings/delays/cancellations for the central Kentucky (and some southern Indiana) area. Daycare centers, schools, government offices, doctors' offices, production plants, you name it, it's probably on the list.

We have between 6 and 7" of snow on the ground down here in Elizabethtown; from what I hear from my friend up in Louisville, they have anywhere between 8 and 14", depending on the area of town, wind and drift. Oh, and there's a layer of ice in there somewhere, too, because it rained/sleeted for a couple of hours yesterday, in between snowstorms. It's also cold as fuck outside; the temp is something like 16, with a windchill of -1F.

I hate winter. Ugh.

I know there are a lot of y'all getting pummeled badly, with snow measuring in the feet rather than inches, and I really feel for you. But we are not equipped to handle true winter weather down here, and GOD, I wish this would go far, far away. School was called off yesterday, and today; I told Matthew I won't be a bit surprised if it's called off for Thursday, as well. Because the thing about being county schools is: the buses have to be able to safely reach all the students, and that means the ones who live out on the back roads, in the more rural parts of the county. The places where the snowplows and salt/sand trucks don't go.

On the up side, I don't work in Louisville any more, so I don't have to either 1) call in to work and thus use up vacation hours on snow days or 2) risk life and limb and auto, making the trip. I also have power, and working internet/television, plenty of food, soda, bottled water, and DVDs in the house. My child has a friend who lives one street over (who spent most of the day here yesterday) so he has some company and therefore isn't bugging ME relentlessly. I'm still not happy about the enforced time-in-the-house, but I know it could be a hell of a lot worse.

I'll keep my fingers crossed for y'all on the east coast, because it looks like it's gonna hit hard.

Also, earthquake up in Illinois, huh? Nothing like the earth shaking to start your day, yeah?

this, that and the other

No school for Hardin county tomorrow. I can't tell you how not surprised I was.

I've been rewatching S3 of Buffy, and had the weirdest dream this afternoon, while napping. Drusilla, and Angelus, and random people in a hospital, and just--weird.

Reading through the fic comms I belong to, I have to ask: is everyone posting stories-in-progress? Yeah, I know there are completed stories being posted, but they seem to be the exception over the rule, lately. I'm kind of tired of seeing x/? -- a lot of the stories look interesting, but some it seems never, ever get finished or go on forever and ever, and it's disheartening.

Sort of related to that, another question: if you finish a story, why post it in parts, at random (or regular, whatever) intervals? Why not post it all at once? That's almost as frustrating as the stories-in-progress, and I don't understand. Someone explain it, please?

Finally, a call for assistance, sort of. My mom recently upgraded her OS from Vista to Windows 7. She did this without telling me or my sister, so we could walk her through backing things up, etc., and now her email program has disappeared. I've spent nearly three hours total walking her through the contents of her hard drive, trying to find the damn files, but nada. She can't remember if she had Outlook or OE, either. Yeesh. Last night I helped her download and install Thunderbird, and we tried importing, but it didn't find any mail or her address book. Is there somewhere else to look that I'm not thinking of? I don't have W7 on any of my computers, and we're doing this over the phone, so I'm hampered by not being able to LOOK at the computer.

Also, she has Norton360, and uses their backup/online storage--and has apparently maxed it out. It tells her she doesn't have enough space, and that she can purchase more storage space. She's also had someone suggest an external hard drive for storage/backup. Any suggestions on this, and what might be the best option? Any files she's backing up beyond the actual computer files would be things like pictures, video clips of family stuff, and some word-document files. Any and all suggestions are welcome :)