Snow Woes and Blows
Winter has hit with a vengeance this year! Blizzard snow the day after Christmas, temperatures below zero, and another huge storm this weekend! On Thursday night and Friday we got over 12" of snow! And it was SLICK! Thursday night Shandra got stuck twice on her way home from our house, the second time trying go get into her garage. The next morning she got stuck when she dropped Bubba off at school, luckily there were some handy guys who pushed her up to the highway! Then she got stuck in her parking lot trying to get into the garage again! She called us and we raced down to her condo for the rescue. On our way, we noticed that our neighbor's car was stuck in a huge pile of snow when she tried to get into her driveway, so we decided that once Shandra was free we would go back and help with our neighbor's car.
As we were digging Shandra out, a big tractor with a plow just happened to show up. The driver said that he normally plows her parking lot, but that he had to wait until he was called to do so, and he hadn't been called yet. However, he just happened to notice that Shandra was stuck, so he came over and plowed all of the snow away from her driveway so that we could push her in. Whew!
From there we went back over to our neighbor's house. WOW, she was stuck but good! Apparently she slid while trying to get into the driveway, lost control, and drove right into a huge pile of snow left by a plow. Her son showed up and we dug under the car for a bit, then we decided to clean off the driveway so that when we did get her out we would be able to get up the driveway. We worked and worked for quite some time shoveling until our backs were very sore. Luckily and truck came by with a chain and hooked onto the car and pulled it out. The driver then went to the back of his truck, pulled out a small snowblower, and told us to finish clearing the driveway. Wow! The snowblower cut the work of clearing the driveway more than half! We were done in no time! At that point I made a decision.
January and February are almost always hard months for me - for lots of reasons I suppose. It is dark, cold, and snowy - 3 of my least favorite things! It is also the time when all of the beautiful Christmas lights and decorations come down making the world look dark and dismal. It is also the time of the year for memories - BJ's birthday and anniversary of his death, and now mom's birthday and the anniversary of her death. Consequently, for any of the above named reasons or for some other unknown reason I went from being happy and cheerful to feeling like I had fallen off a cliff into a pit of darkness, despair, anxiety, and depression.
Service - get out of myself and help someone else - that is one way to combat the dark feelings I have been experiencing. Helping my neighbor actually helped me in many ways - and since I am a big wimp and can't handle much physical labor, I made a decision (and Kim totally concurred). We drove right to Murphy's Appliance and bought a snowblower! Our reasoning was that we will use the blower to help all of our neighbors! What a great idea. We started right off, I dropped the blower and Kim off at my friend Tammy's house and then I drove back to pick up Shandra at her house.
Since I was pulling the trailer behind me, I had a great idea to enter Shandra's parking lot from the back side so that I wouldn't have to turn around in her slick lot with the trailer. As I entered the lot I realized that I was in TROUBLE! Apparently the tractor snowplow had plowed the front part of the parking lot and left piles of snow at the back - right in front of me! Oh no! I didn't think that I could back out with the trailer on the back, and since I have all wheel drive, I decided to try to force my way through and around the big piles of snow. I went through the first one, no real problems, skirted the second one, only one to go, but I had to go right through it! So, I gave it some gas and plowed straight ahead, I was going strong, inching my way through the snow pile, when all of the sudden the car stopped and no amount of rocking, coaching, or cursing would move it! I WAS STUCK! I called Shandra to come out with her shovel, and I tried to open my door to look at the damage - oops, the door wouldn't open. I pushed and pushed and finally got it open - the snow was so deep that it had covered my door!
Luckily for me the tractor came back by and after surveying the problem drove to the back, hooked a chain to the rear of my car and pulled me out. I then backed up a bit and waited for him to clear the snow pile away. It was interesting to watch him move the snow because it was so slick that it took several tries to get the piles to move out of the way. I was so grateful for his help! It was so deep, I probably would have had to stay there until spring when the snow melted before I got unstuck!
Anyway, we picked up Shandra and Kim and spent the rest of the day blowing everyone's driveways. It felt so good to know that we were helping our friends and neighbors in such a small way. It helped my mood for a day!
As we were digging Shandra out, a big tractor with a plow just happened to show up. The driver said that he normally plows her parking lot, but that he had to wait until he was called to do so, and he hadn't been called yet. However, he just happened to notice that Shandra was stuck, so he came over and plowed all of the snow away from her driveway so that we could push her in. Whew!
From there we went back over to our neighbor's house. WOW, she was stuck but good! Apparently she slid while trying to get into the driveway, lost control, and drove right into a huge pile of snow left by a plow. Her son showed up and we dug under the car for a bit, then we decided to clean off the driveway so that when we did get her out we would be able to get up the driveway. We worked and worked for quite some time shoveling until our backs were very sore. Luckily and truck came by with a chain and hooked onto the car and pulled it out. The driver then went to the back of his truck, pulled out a small snowblower, and told us to finish clearing the driveway. Wow! The snowblower cut the work of clearing the driveway more than half! We were done in no time! At that point I made a decision.
January and February are almost always hard months for me - for lots of reasons I suppose. It is dark, cold, and snowy - 3 of my least favorite things! It is also the time when all of the beautiful Christmas lights and decorations come down making the world look dark and dismal. It is also the time of the year for memories - BJ's birthday and anniversary of his death, and now mom's birthday and the anniversary of her death. Consequently, for any of the above named reasons or for some other unknown reason I went from being happy and cheerful to feeling like I had fallen off a cliff into a pit of darkness, despair, anxiety, and depression.
Service - get out of myself and help someone else - that is one way to combat the dark feelings I have been experiencing. Helping my neighbor actually helped me in many ways - and since I am a big wimp and can't handle much physical labor, I made a decision (and Kim totally concurred). We drove right to Murphy's Appliance and bought a snowblower! Our reasoning was that we will use the blower to help all of our neighbors! What a great idea. We started right off, I dropped the blower and Kim off at my friend Tammy's house and then I drove back to pick up Shandra at her house.
Since I was pulling the trailer behind me, I had a great idea to enter Shandra's parking lot from the back side so that I wouldn't have to turn around in her slick lot with the trailer. As I entered the lot I realized that I was in TROUBLE! Apparently the tractor snowplow had plowed the front part of the parking lot and left piles of snow at the back - right in front of me! Oh no! I didn't think that I could back out with the trailer on the back, and since I have all wheel drive, I decided to try to force my way through and around the big piles of snow. I went through the first one, no real problems, skirted the second one, only one to go, but I had to go right through it! So, I gave it some gas and plowed straight ahead, I was going strong, inching my way through the snow pile, when all of the sudden the car stopped and no amount of rocking, coaching, or cursing would move it! I WAS STUCK! I called Shandra to come out with her shovel, and I tried to open my door to look at the damage - oops, the door wouldn't open. I pushed and pushed and finally got it open - the snow was so deep that it had covered my door!
Luckily for me the tractor came back by and after surveying the problem drove to the back, hooked a chain to the rear of my car and pulled me out. I then backed up a bit and waited for him to clear the snow pile away. It was interesting to watch him move the snow because it was so slick that it took several tries to get the piles to move out of the way. I was so grateful for his help! It was so deep, I probably would have had to stay there until spring when the snow melted before I got unstuck!
Anyway, we picked up Shandra and Kim and spent the rest of the day blowing everyone's driveways. It felt so good to know that we were helping our friends and neighbors in such a small way. It helped my mood for a day!
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