Weird weather in NoVA

It was 70 degrees yesterday. Kids were out in t-shirts and shorts, riding bikes.

Two weeks ago (around the time I skidded out on ice, hit another person's car and got mine put in the shop AND STILL DON'T HAVE BACK YET!!) it looked like this:





Before anyone goes off on "women drivers" or "snow sheep," I'll let you in on what happened. I learned to drive in the suburbs of Chicago and also lived in Michigan for a while. I can handle driving in snow. My car has new tires and is a well-known model for safe driving in poor weather. The morning of the collision (around 7:30 a.m.) it had started to snow, the first snow of the season. I drove to Dash's daycare, dropped him off, and by the time I left the building, the snow was sticking and it was getting colder. I saw a snow plow drive by with its plow up, heading somewhere more important. When I turned off on a side street, I was thinking about the coffee I was going to purchase before I met Rosie's kindergarten teacher for our conference. The speed limit on the road was 25 mph and there was a Jeep ahead of me by a few car lengths, stopped at a stop sign. I was decelerating and braked, but my car kept moving forward as if the brakes weren't there at all! It had already iced over! When I realized that my brakes weren't making any difference and I was going to hit the Jeep, I checked to see if there were any pedestrians on the sidewalk and pulled up onto the curb. I still grazed the Jeep and rammed the stop sign.

One saving grace? Since I haven't had a collision on my insurance policy in at least 10 years (probably more), I get amnesty and the premium won't be going up. Whew.