They just don't mix, North Carolina and Snow, that is.  We got a 1/2 inch of snow...yes..one half of one inch...and Raleigh was literally GRIDLOCKED!  We had to go 20 miles last night..it took us 6.5 hours..I shit you not!  There were wrecks everywhere, cars sliding off the road, cars abandoned because they couldn't make it up slight inclines.  If I had a camera I would have taken pictures of it...especially since we weren't moving on the highway.  Police were absolutely useless, they did nothing but sit in their cars and watch the pandemonium.  I'm honestly scared to see what happens if there's ever a real emergency here.  Now being seasoned Pennsylvania drivers, we had no problems in the snow or ice, but it still scares the crap out of me being on the road with these people...

So we got home last night and had yet another surprise for us.  Gas...natural gas, clear air, North Carolina breeze!  We were sniffin it pretty heavily so we had the gas people come out and take a look at it today.  Turns out we were right...a fitting that joins two pipes together was  mangled from being put in wrong and causing the leak.  The gas guy said it wasn't enough of a leak to cause a $111 gas bill for 11 days, but certainly would help a little.  I think I'm going to have to put up a survey or something here to find out what kind of gas bills people are paying to heat their homes.  I'm told to expect an average of about 200, but that sounds awefully high considering we have the heat at 68 and won't be using the fireplace...ever again!  Gotta love homeownership...