1. Today was the starting day for work on the staircase from our living room down into our basement! This is a major hurdle and will enable us to more easily start on our next project – finishing the basement! You can see some [before pics](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/house/stairs-before/) and some [during pics](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/house/stairs-during/) to see what it looks like. Quarters are quite cramped, but we’re excited that we’ll soon have a way to get down into the basement that doesn’t involve going outside of the house!
2. Today was the first big snowstorm of the season in our area. I’m not sure how many inches fell, but it seems to have been quite a bit. Luckily it was fairly powdery, so I was able to brush it off of my car pretty easily. It took me about an hour to get home, which is a lot considering that it’s normally less than 15 minutes. However, it doesn’t hold a candle to a few years ago when it took almost four hours for me to get home (to downtown Beverly, which is only two miles further than I drive now). Here’s some [photos from the evening](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/events/2007/december_13_snowstorm/).
3. As a side note, tonight was the first time I had driven Rebecca’s new Subaru Legacy Wagon in truly bad conditions, and I must say that it was AWESOME! The all-wheel drive and anti-lock brakes were a godsend. It easily backed up our slick, snow-covered driveway, handled all of the twists and turns with no problem at all. Seriously, it’s like the car doesn’t even care that there’s snow. “Hmm, got some driving to do. What’s this white stuff? Oh, nevermind. Just keep drivin’, just keep drivin’…”
4. Corey’s Mini broke down on the way home from work (Peabody to Somerville), and so the three of us packed into the car to drive down and pick him up in Woburn. He’s staying here for the night – hopefully we’ll find a place to squeeze him in!

I hope everyone else affected by the storm is doing okay. Feel free to leave your stories in the comments, or else link to any posts that you’ve written!