Jeff and Alison are off work and school tomorrow; I'm to report in at noon.
I hope my body will be functioning by then. We'd been warned -- perhaps over-warned about the coming storm so I wanted to get work outs in before my gym closed. I work out at work when I'm there, but the Jordan Y is closer to me, so when I'm not downtown, I tend to go there instead of back to work.
All the other gym rats had the same idea I did on Saturday -- get the weekend work out in before all frozen hell broke loose. I called before I went in this morning to be sure they gym was open. It was, but by the time I got there, they'd already decided to close early. I was there in time to get a good work out in, though.
So after my work out, I came home and took stock of the storm. Snow had started falling in a straight light and had continued while I was inside. I think we ended with about a foot. Jeff didn't think we needed to shovel until it stopped.
I reported sightings of other shovelers but he implored me to ignore them. Shovel smart. Shovel once, he begged.
But then I caught sight of the snickerdoodles. Sure I'd had two for breakfast on Saturday, and another couple throughout the day, but I'd worked out, right? They'd used whole wheat flour and no one liked them but me. And they were calling my name. Again.
I decided I could have a cookie if I shoveled. My sweat had cooled and I was only a little stinky. I could shovel, have my cookie and then shower, Right? Right. How hard could it be?
The snow was pretty. So pretty. But like me (in my dreams) it weighed a heckuva lot more than it looked like. And Jeff was tres annoyed that I was violating the shovel once agreement. I tried to send him inside. I was doing snickerdoodle pennance, he wasn't.
He decided I should bring wet wood in while I was out there so if the power went out, we'd have the fireplace. A good idea. But first I had to shovel a path to the woodpile. We'd been piling up snow from the driveway at the entry to the backyard and the woodpile. It was maybe 4-feet-tall. I broke through.
I stacked the wood and then I turned to the drive. The snow was still coming down but as I shoveled, I was glad I'd caved in to the peer pressure. Surely getting the first layer up would make it easier laters. It seemed like there was already a foot of snow down, and underneath it was a little soft, so I was glad to reduce the chance of an ice layer.
Jeff came out with Alison wearing her minion hat. He set her to work knocking snow from our shrubs and small trees, which were so loaded down, they were bent over. After a while, she started grabbing snow from my pile to start a snowman. I was near the Subaru when we heard a creak and a bunch of snow fell from my neighbor's magnolia tree in between Ali and me.
Right behind it came a tree limb, happily missing both of us and the little SUV. I had Ali clear out of there and sent her to the front yard. Jeff had started on the far end of the drive and we kept at it until we'd cleared the path.
As I was clearing the front porch, another pile of snow fell on me from our trees. I felt like a donut being sprinkled with powedered sugar. Cold powdered sugar.
We finished the drive, chatted up the neighbors and helped Ali with her snowman before we decided to tackle the tree limb. It had brought down enough snow that we had to shovel again, and Jeff had to get the chainsaw out to get it drag-able. Playing with power tools lifted his mood, so I was no longer in trouble for premature shoveling.
We must have been out there three to four hours. The temps are to drop to sub-zero tonight. Tomorrow's high is to be something like 30 below zero. For once I'm not exaggerating. So we're happy to have power; happy the drive is passable and happy to be snug and comfy.
Jeff made Grammie's chili for dinner so we're pretty full right now. Although I fear another snickerdoodle might be in my future....
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