A Blanket of White Stuff Was Dumped on My House

Yes, I know. It was dumped on the houses of everyone in the Northeast, not just mine. *g*

Let me start by saying Arctic gear rocks. :D Usually, I'm miserable when shoveling. I can't shovel for more than a half hour without feeling tired, hot, light headed, nauseous, and sometimes short of breath. I always thought it was just me being a wimp or perhaps my ticker was soon to expire, but now I realize, it's because I wasn't dressed properly. Usually, I layer up, including an extra sweater, double up my gloves, add a scarf and a hat. My gloves get wet; my pants get wet; my fingers get cold; my mouth goes numb, and I'm miserable. This time, I put on my sister's hiking gear (because she'd bought herself a second set recently). Snow pants over my regular pants which were tucked into my boots, her jacket with .. something or other .. underneath it, a hat, and gloves. No scarf, no extra sweater, no doubling up on anything was required. Everything was light, too, so I could move around easily. We had to change from the insulated gloves to these hiking mittens that she has because my fingers were still chilled. Once I was strapped into those mittens, boy, I was golden. My face did not get cold. My pants did not get wet. My neck was warm. All of me was warm. In fact, I felt like I was inside the house and not in the middle of an 11 degree snow storm (or whatever the temp. was .. 11, -11, whatever, I heard someone outside mention the number "11" lol ) shoveling snow for several hours. We were out there for more than *two hours* helping my uncle shovel the porch, walkway, sidewalk and driveway. We made this humongous mountainous mound of snow in front of our porch, too. lol When I'm not feeling so lazy, I'll venture outside again to take pics of it, and you can see how much snow we dealt with (and it was still coming down when we finally went inside). I was not tired. I need not feel weak in the arms or legs, nor dizzy, nor sick at all. It was fantastic! We would have kept shoveling, but it seemed pointless at that point because new snow would only replace the open spots we'd just shoveled, and we would have to do it all over again later in the afternoon and tomorrow morning anyway.

I did have a bit of trouble seeing though. My sis had on her snow/hiking goggles. I had my glasses which after only a few minutes were caked in ice and snow. I could not see through them and stumbled on the snow drifts a few times while shoveling. I had to look *over* my glasses to get a sense of where to shovel (on the ground), because looking through the iced lenses was not helpful; it all looked flat and white, no depth perception anymore. Sure, I could've taken off my glasses, but they came in handy in the Arctic Circle as a windbreaker. Plus, though I had depth perception without my glasses, the world was still rather fuzzy. lol

I hope the office is closed tomorrow. My boss had us cancel Monday night's patients, so I'm hopin' for a phone call in the morning. Not that I don't have to go in tomorrow anyway; I still have to get together the people for Tuesday and Wednesday. But I can lock the door while I'm there and leave on the answering machine if we're closed, and it'll take me only an hour or two to get the records together instead of *several* hours because of all the interruptions from walk-ins and the telephone. :)

Anyway, I wanted to post a few pictures, pre-shovel, of the world just outside my door. :)


My backyard - Circled is a the location of a bench in the yard; only the top half is visible


The area later dubbed as the "Arctic Circle" - why the Arctic Circle? Right in front of my Mom's car was the coldest and windiest section around our home. Just beyond the mound in front of her car's nose was a flat dusting of snow. Somehow her car acted as a barrier as the strong winds pushed the snow in the (side) yard around and up onto her car. Stand in that area, and it was cold, despite the Arctic gear. My glasses acted as a nice barrier to the wind, especially when shoveling in that vicinity. Everytime we dumped a shovel of snow in that area, it would blow up into the air and land on our heads. lol


More of my Mom's car and the cars around/behind it - does this give you an idea of how much there was (and still is) to shovel? *g*



another driveway shot, pre-shovel .. you can see the snow reaching the wall on the house on the hill across the street from me


Here's a good pre-shovel, pre-mound shot. I do plan on taking another photo from the same angle so you can see the top of the mound now. I'll have to do that before we go out shoveling *again* ;)


I've circled the car in my neighbor's driveway. *g*


Popcorn, my uncle's dog, jumps out into the snow.


Popcorn looks like she's had enough, and my uncle starts shoveling the walkway.

Oh, and yes, when we did manage to shovel enough of the driveway, the cars were backed out (so we could shovel more of the space that was under and in front of the cars). Unfortunately, when it came time to pull my mother's car into her space again, the battery died. She's too far in for my uncle to jump start her, but she's too far back for him to be able to pull in his car either. Since there's a State of Emergency, AAA said to call back tomorrow, so the cars are stuck like that for now, unless we really want to push it forward, back into the Arctic Circle (which, of course, will make it more difficult for AAA to reach her car in the morning). lol Ah, winter.