Dear Snow: You're cramping my style (and my arm, and my back...)

Two days ago I wrote an open letter to the snow. Either mother nature didn't get it... or she decided to ignore it, because when I woke up yesterday, this is what I saw out my window:

 

You know, before this winter – before the record breaking 20 inches of snow that fell in December – a snow like this would have been talked about for a week. There would have been a run on snow shovels and milk and children would have been doing the inside-out-jammie dance and throwing ice cubes down the toilet for luck, and everything would have shut down. That's what 6 inches of snow would do to this small town south of the Mason Dixon Line. And let's not even forget that this 6 inches fell on top of the 5 inches we got just days before.

Any other year, this would have been major stuff. After all, we've exceeded our yearly average snowfall by 400%. I kid you not. That one 20-inch snow pretty much set us up for snow totals for the next two years, and that was only one of 5 times it's already snowed this season.

So you can imagine my concern when this snow "storm" barely hit the radar with local weathermen, as they were skipping ahead to what they are calling the new "major storm" that's going to hit tomorrow.

So I ask you, if 6 inches on top of 5 inches isn't major snow now, what is???

Turns out, I really didn't want to hear the answer to that.

The answer is between 15 and 24 inches. That's right. Another two feet of the fluffy white stuff, on top of the about eight inches we still have left. That's 1800 square feet of driveway to clear with approximately 3600 square feet of snow. 

That's right, I did the math.

And you know what?  With the 54,000 square feet of snow I've already shoveled, that is my own personal inconvenient truth. Where the heck is global warming when you need it??

Someone at the grocery store said she was just going to let it melt, because the temperature is supposed to get up to 40 degrees (F) today before the next snow wallops us, but I stood looking at my driveway and thought this:

I could let it try to melt, and have three inches of slush I could easily drive over today, which overnight would turn to ice in the below-20 degree (F) cold front, which then would be 3 inches of ice under two feet of snow, which would pretty much preclude hiring someone to plow the driveway (I know your phone number Sean... I know you have a plow... don't think you're getting out of it this time!) and would sock us in for quite possibly the next two months. 

(Don't ask how I know this. Experience is a painful teacher.) 

So even though yesterday I could have been lazy and let the sun do it's thing, I shoveled. I shoveled because I knew in three days it would make the biggest difference in the world to us, and I was willing to do the extra work to spare the pain later on.

And if you're looking for a writing analogy here, the lesson might be to stop and work out the problems you're having with your WIP before just ploddding ahead and thinking you'll go back and clean it up later. Except, I've decided I'm plodding ahead because I can't keep going back to fix stuff or I'll never finish. So I'm not sure if that analogy actually works. 

BUT: on the lighter side, we did have fun too. 

We had a massive snowball fight.

 

 We built not only a snowMAN but a snow PUPPY!

Isn't that puppy awesome?? Here he is closer up:

  

Tell me if he doesn't look like our Scout?

  

Well, color nothwithstanding, of course! 

We made chocolate chip cookies, sledded down the steep hill in the back yard (while I closed my eyes and prayed no one would hit a tree), played Wii, read by the fire... 

In short, I took a day off, like all the other working moms around here had to do when school was canceled. I have a niggling feeling it won't be my last.

Because tomorrow the "major storm" hits, and is supposed to last on into Sunday. And you know what? There's another snow storm headed this way for Tuesday.

The good news never stops.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go stock up on milk and snow shovels.