Snow!

On my days off this week we got a slight on/off sprinkling of snow.  I have not really been a fan of snow since I started working police dispatch.  You see that white stuff that falls from the sky seems to make motorists forget how to drive and thus making for a difficult workday.

 

Snow on my days off is okay but still I am not a fan.  I really only tolerate snow when I am at home drinking a cup of coffee with nowhere to go.  I am a total gradma driver too.  I have fear of sliding through an intersection.

Growing up we never really shoved the driveway.  My parents had a huge driveway and lived on the main street with no sidewalks.  The snow would pile up at the end of the driveway and you would have to force your car over it, or worse when the snow tracks turned to ice, hoping to make it into traffic without hitting anybody.  I’m not even kidding!

My first actual experience shoveling snow was in the rental house my sisters and I moved into during college.  We lived in the house that was at the cull-d-sac so shoveling snow meant shoveling the entire extra sidewalk too.  My sister Katie decided to buy a house so we moved from the rental house to her house.  I was so thankful it wasn’t a corner property or cull-d-sac again!

When Kenyon and I moved into our new house there were pros and cons we were already looking for when we were looking at houses.  I would have liked a south facing house, but ours is not.  I also didn’t want a corner lot or a cull-d-sac from my previous years of snow shoveling!  I also despise mowing lawn so a small lawn was also on my pro list!

One morning a few years ago I was on a day off and woke up to LOTS of snow.  We don’t get a whole lot of snow in Boise so this was quite a bit.  It took a while but I got us all shoveled out.  It actually wasn’t too bad because I viewed it as exercise and was trying to earn lots of APs that week.  A little while later I looked at my elderly neighbor’s house to see there was a single path shoveled from the doorway, down the walkway, down the edge of the driveway, and along the sidewalk to the mailbox.  I had not seen “old man” (that is what we call him) out there shoveling but I knew that is who dug the path to the mailbox.  It hurt my heart to think of him out there shoveling a single path.

I crossed over and knocked on the door asking if I could shovel the rest of the driveway and sidewalk for them.  Although they had no plans to leave the house there was no possibility of that much snow melting without shoveling it clean.  Hey, I was earning APs anyway so why not.  Old Man’s wife met me at the garage when I was almost done and shoved $20 in my pocket!  She wouldn’t accept my offer of refusal.  We also exchanged names and phone numbers in case they ever needed anything from Kenyon or I.

It all started from there that I was now responsible for shoveling TWO driveways and TWO sidewalks.  Again, thankfully they are not a corner lot or cull-d-sac either.  At first she would meet me at the door to thank me for digging them out and once she even called me over for cinnamon rolls as a thank you.  Eventually I convinced her that no thank you was necessary and that I just wanted to make sure they were being taken care of.  I found out Old Man had Parkinson’s and dementia and last year she had to put him into a home.  She goes to visit him every day.  It makes me sad to think of her all alone in that house.

My 3:30am wakeup call is in full swing again this week.  But, instead of treadmill time it is snow shoveling time.  I had to do some shoveling on my days off as well as yesterday and today.  We aren’t getting as much snow as other states but we did get at least three or four inches last night.  We are expected more snow through the week so I see more shoveling in my future.

 

 

 

I earn about 3 PPVs in 40 minutes of shoveling.  However, it isn’t doing much to increase my FitBit totals.  I had hopes of getting on the treadmill yesterday after work but I didn’t feel like it.  That is why I’m waking up at 3:30am.  So I don’t have to exercise after work!