Snow Shoveling 101--January 24, 2016

I started this blog so that when I am gone, my children will have something to look back on and smile..."I can remember that trip.." or "I miss Mom."  This is one of those blogs that they will read, and think...."I couldn't stand when she would go on and on about how to shovel snow."  

So here goes...snow is a natural phenomenon, so removing it has to be done with natural elements in mind...namely, the sun.  In a nutshell, the art of snow removal is to "unleash the power of the sun" which I think I stole from an old Sunny Delight commercial (so old, I think the product is now called Sunny D.)   I also like to say that I am going out to "unharness the power of the sun," which is technically the same thing, but another way to annoy all those around me.

We live on a little hill, with a little driveway that is a little steep.  Our garage is at the top of the driveway, and is covered by a bedroom of our house.  So, any snow that is on the top of the garage will melt onto the driveway, and freeze overnight, and cause black ice.  I don't remember anyone calling black ice "black ice" until recently, but black ice is so much worse than regular ice, because you don't know it is there.

That makes it especially important to remove anything (i.e. snow/wetness) that can become black ice.
So, the goal is to get the snow removed from our driveway as soon and as early as possible in the day, so that the sun will melt whatever wetness is on the driveway, and we will have a dry driveway at night...and no black ice.  

This is usually easier said than done, especially when you get a lot of snow...like today.  See these photos:

Hard to tell at this angle, but this is all I had shoveled as of last night...a path wide enough to get o the street, and that is the street ahead, which was plowed one, but is now under another 12 inches of snow.  The walls of this mound (from the first time the plow came through) are about 2-3 feet high. 

This was someone's great idea...to put all three cars in the driveway.  Which means that we then had to work really hard to get out all three cars from the driveway.

Anyway, I think all in all, I was out there on and off for about 4 hours, and then the boys and Anna came out for about an hour or so each.  Anna had to go to work at noon (at an ice cream parlor!!), so she left a little early.  By the end, we had most of the snow off the driveway, but there were so wet spots...which will probably be really slippery tomorrow morning!! 

Snow Day!! January 23, 2016!

Today there was one major snowstorm all along the East Coast.  It started last night around 7, and we were definitely walloped with a lot of snow.    I did make pancakes for breakfast, but we had almost none of the food I had stockpiled...when will I learn?

We decided to put all three cars in the driveway so we wouldn't get snowplowed in...not sure that was such a good idea.  This photo was taken at noon...and the snow is still coming!

Lily and Timmy went out early to play:

Anna, Timmy, and Matthew went out to go sledding at the Abington Club around 3.  Lily played most of the day in this box.....I don't know why, but she does make it look comfortable:

Eventually, I couldn't take it anymore, so Lily and watched some "Goldberg" episodes--lots of Jenkintown references!   This is Anna leaving for sledding:

Around 4:30, I went out to shovel a little., and Lily came out to play in the snow....and we ran into Timmy, Matthew, and Anna coming home from sledding.   So, Lily, Anna, and I went for a nice walk...in the snow.  It really didn't let up.  When we got home, I stayed out awhile longer, and the shoveling was really hard--all three cars are in our driveway, and the plow came through once, and the mountain to get out of our driveway is at least three feet high.

Snow Preparations....January 22, 2016

In February, 2014, we lost power for 2 1/2 days, and it was tough.  The temperature in our house on the second night was 39 degrees.   It was tough.  I was lucky to have my friend, Missy, living down the street (now they live in Florida!), and they had a generator, so we hung out there one night, and managed to keep ourselves busy, so it was tough, but manageable.

One of the things I learned from that snowstorm, and the power outage, was that I was never going to get caught up in snowstorm hype, and buy all the food that everyone buys whenever there is an impending snowstorm.  As I once heard about people who buy all the eggs, milk, and bread they can find, "are all these people planning on staying home and making french toast all day?"   I realized in the last storm (I am a slow learner!), that even in the worst storms that we see here in Philadelphia area, you can dig out within a few hours after the snow ends, and usually get out onto the roadways within 6 hours.   As such, there is almost no reason to buy lots of food to stockpile for a snowstorm...you can always get out.   As I tell my kids, we are not in Little House on the Prairie.   We don't live in a remote area, and we have cars, and stores open up.  We can get food.  Don't worry.

So, what did I do today?  I ran around all day buying a ridiculous amount of food.  I think we are forecast to get 12-18 inches here in Philadelphia, which is not all that much.  In Washington, where my best friend lives (for now...she is about to move with her husband to San Francisco!),   they are supposed to get 20-30 inches.   That is an impressive amount.   But 12-18 inches isn't all that fantastic.

 So, why did I buy the food I bought today?   I got enough food for three breakfasts, four lunches, and at least 5 different dinners.  And that is not including all the stuff I plan to bake:   cookies, brownies, bread.  It is absurd (especially if I lose power!).   And I bought enough snack food to last for three months, because I don't really let my kids eats too much snack (read: junk food).   I think I get itchy...as if what if tomorrow is the day we decide we really want Red Velvet Oreos (yes...I bought them!!  What?  Are you kidding?).

What makes it worse, is that I actually knew what I was doing.  I called my friend, Sheila, during the middle of this buying, and told her I was being ridiculous....and I still bought stuff.

So, I will be with my family tonight (Timmy has a basketball game which has apparently not been cancelled), and we will be eating snack food and having A LOT of food tomorrow--including french toast for breakfast!

Our Disney World Trip-January 2016

We had a shortened trip to Disney World this year.....

Happy New Years Day!! January 1, 2016!

This was a strange New Year's Eve for us.  We were supposed to go skiing for a few days, but, as you might know, the weather has been so warm, there is no snow.  So we cancelled that trip.  Then we talked about going on some different trips, but no one really wanted to go too far from home.  As it turned out,  Chris called me at 2 on New Year's Eve, and said that he wanted to go to the beach for the night.   In Ocean City, they have all kinds of family-friendly activities on the boardwalk, and they have fireworks at midnight.    We quickly packed up the three youngest, and they took off at 5.

I stayed home with Anna and Jack, who both had plans, because I didn't want them staying by themselves.   That makes it the first time in 21 years that Chris and I haven't been together for New Year's Eve....it was weird not all being together.   Our older children have done things apart from us at times, but this was the first time Chris and I weren't together.   After Anna and Jack left to go to their parties, I got into bed...at 8:30 pm!  It was actually great.

I think I must have fallen asleep, because I woke up when Matthew called me at around 10, to see what I was doing.  Then Anna called.  Then Chris called.  Then Anna came home, then I waited for Jack to come home, which was very late.  So I was up for about 5 hours, after I had already fallen asleep.   It really messed me up, but I got to sleep in late next morning (for me--9 am!).

Chris came home with Timmy, Matthew, and Lily around 5 the next day, so we finished watching the Mummers' Day Parade, which is also something Chris loves to  do, so it was weird we didn't do it together this year.   Anyway, it was a weird New Year's for us.

I hope next year, we can all be somewhere together, hopefully in a warm climate (I hate the cold weather here in January-March...I can't wait to move to a warmer climate...)   I hate to say this, but I am really seeing how quickly they are starting to leave for college, and having all of us together is really great.   I never took having us all together for granted when they were little, but I really appreciate it now.  I can remember when it was at its most chaotic around here, and children would be screaming and crying, and Chris would say something about it being crazy and chaotic, and I would always say "be thankful for that chaos, because we will miss it when they are gone."  It always made us appreciate them being whatever age they were...because they were all growing up so fast.

I don't do well in January.  The cold weather is terrible, and it makes me sad--I really just hibernate.  I never want to go out at night. I can usually do well during the day, but I just want to stay home once the sun goes down.  So I imagine I will do very little this January, and only slightly more in February, but have a Happy New Year!!