That was nowhere near the worst storm I've seen. Yes, it was bad, but I'm a New England girl and a park ranger and I know how to prepare for these things. Wednesday, I went grocery shopping, but I needed to anyway. Made sure I had fixings for beef stew and Friday afternoon I started it. Let it simmer on the stove for a few hours and then put it away for Saturday. Saturday, the stew was absolutely divine. It was actually fun being snowbound for a day or two, great excuse to stay in my PJs and read, watch movies, and play video games. The shoveling this AM was not nearly as much fun, however.

Oh, and Portland's record wasn't for 31.9 inches, it was for the amount of snow that fell within those 24 hour periods for those specific dates - 17" on Friday and 14.9 on Saturday. I'm a weather junkie after having to work outside for four winters, and I have NOAA's automated weather info on speed dial.