Another foot, another thousand shovels of snow

Speaking of my backyard, I can see in the next yard a man who has just descended a ladder, having climbed it and done something up there with the power or cable lines. Huh. It's all happening most likely because there's another foot of snow on the ground today, and the wet, heavy snow we're getting makes the cables and lines sag and stretch. The world is again buried. I haven't been hanging as much laundry out as I would normally in this season, I'll tell you that! And I haven't been to the gym in a while; I keep getting workouts shoveling my walkways and driveway.

Just last night my daughter and I carried our shovels over to a neighbor's house and shoveled their walk as far as we could before it got dark and we got cold. So we've had our share of digging of late, I say. And the people in the house behind us are selling, so they're not around to shovel, which is a pain when there's this much snow. So I shoveled half of their walk today. Sometimes I think the entire neighborhood should just invest in a little tiny bobcat they can use to push snow off all the walks at once (or drill holes or backhoe gardens or ...).

This snowstorm was predicted to bring 1-3 inches of snow, but instead has dropped another foot, the third foot we've had in a week. I just sent my mother home yesterday, luckily, because her travel days happened to dodge all three storms. Two happened while she was here, but that was fine because we could all just hole up, which we did. We did all our shopping in one five-hour sprint around town the minute things opened back up again, which was great (but took it out of my ma for the next couple of days); then I made tons of stuff for people and stumbled across more great stuff that was fun to give. It was a good holiday, and now that we're in for this storm (my sweetie is going to do work he must do at the office and I wished him luck out there), I can do more making of good stuff. I have a blanket to quilt, and it's all pinned up and ready to stitch.

So it's play date central around here, and we'll be hosting movie afternoon, with all the kids coming over to watch Mary Poppins. We'll make cookies and popcorn, and ask the kids to bring what they like to drink. So again, all our plans are being called on account of weather; we must adjust and recalibrate our rhythms to those of the weather. And it's still snowing.

Funny: just three weeks ago I was reading about how it was an El Nino year so we were likely to have a mild, dry winter. Ummm, no. But what a good year to have a ski pass, as long as you can get up to the mountains and back. Yippee!