We got THE CALL last night. “blah blah blah NO SCHOOL TOMORROW blah blah blah”. I knew it was coming, but it was ridiculous at that point. It was 7pm and there wasn’t a snowflake in sight. At midnight, when I finally went to bed it still wasn’t snowing. I’d already pondered whether the 50% accurate Meteorologists had gotten it right. At 2AM, when I checked for snow…there still was none. I was feeling a bit smug. At 4AM it had started to snow, and by 6:30AM we had about four inches. Not a ton, but enough that I had to get dressed to drive our van down the driveway to make tracks for my wife’s shallower car. I had offered to drive her to work, but she opted to drive herself.

Every two hours I would go down the driveway, trying to keep the 1/4 mile of tracks clear enough that we could see and use them. Both were a bit of a struggle today. Early in the afternoon, my two high school songs left for wrestling practice at the school. I had offered to drive them, but they wanted to make the trip on their own. There’s no way to learn to drive in snow, except to do it, so I let them go.

Little did I know that they only made it out of the garage and about 40 feet down the drive before getting stuck. I had forgotten to explain that you had to make a hard 90-degree turn while backing out or you’d get stuck. I was in the midst of getting ready to do some shoveling, so while I was dressing they were struggling to get the van unstuck. During their ordeal they got a call from the wrestling coach canceling practice.

As I headed out the door to shovel, they trudged back in, announcing that practice had been canceled. They failed to mention that they hadn’t gotten very far. It took my youngest daughter to make that announcement.

At that point, I should have asked my wrestlers to help me shovel, but for whatever reason, I didn’t. The snow was very light and dry, so how much work could it be. I mean seriously, although we have 1/4 mile of driveway, the “upper drive” is “only” a few square feet. By a few I mean maybe 4,000. OK, so I’m an idiot. Let’s just be clear on that point.

So I started shoveling. I did have an iPod in my pocket. It’s my #4 hand-me-down from my kids. I have a tendency to put them through the wash after using them for several months. Since they’ve all been hand-me-downs I don’t feel completely awful about that. It pains me, but I eventually get another one that somebody doesn’t want.

So this is a 4th gen iPod nano. Not a fancy iPod Touch (I still haven’t gotten one of those handed down), but just a plain old iPod Nano. As part of the “moving in” process, I have to load music and such. I’m kind of an iTunes snob, so I have my music organized into all sorts of different playlists. One of them is designed to help me stay motivated while doing housework. It’s called the GTD Playlist (from David Allen’s Getting Things Done).

For some reason, when I loaded the music onto this iPod it shuffled the songs. I could swear that it included some songs that aren’t in the playlist, but I haven’t gotten around to actually looking at the playlist in iTunes. I’ll explain in a bit, but for now, just know that the songs are a very eclectic mix of 1950’s, 1960’s, 1970’s, 1980’s, and even more recent music. They are supposed to be arranged in a manner that will allow for bursts of energy, followed by a more calming song to help me refocus. Seriously, I’m kind of a weirdo when it comes to that kind of playlist, but it works for me. Unbeknownst to me, the mixed-up playlist was more of a high-intensity set, followed by one lower intensity song, then dozens of “power songs”.

So there I was, shoveling away. And singing. Not that I sing well, but I make up in volume for my ability. I have to make up for a terrible dearth of ability, so I have to sing REALLY LOUDLY. I mean shaking the neighbors glass loudly. And our nearest neighbor is over 1/4 of a mile away. Don’t worry, I already made an official apology to them via Facebook. I even tagged them in it. My kids thought their goats were crying out, but were dismayed to discover that it was actually me singing. Well, at least doing what passes for singing when it comes out of my mouth.

With my insulated headphones and winter hat, I really couldn’t hear myself. From the reports I was pretty loud. My bad!

Anyway…I was shoveling. More accurately, I was pushing the snow. We have one of those first-generation snow pushing shovels. Not the fancy new ones that do most of the work for you, but one that makes you think the shovel is doing the work, until you actually have to lift the snow. It’s really a nice shovel, but the work is tiring nonetheless. And we have those 4,000 or so square feet to shovel. Actually, I have no idea how much square footage we have. It’s a bunch. Enough to park sixteen cars.

To make matters worse, the 4″ of snow had multiplied to 9″, and it was still coming down. I shoveled a path for my wife’s car, and when I got done, I had to go back and hit it again so that it actually looked shoveled. Then I cleared a path for my van, since it was the only other vehicle that could make it down the longer part of the drive.

Once I got that done, I figured I’d try to finish the last part of the driveway where the kids’ car will eventually pull out. Fortunately, my wife called home and said she was coming home “in 20 minutes”. I convinced her to meet me part way and leave her car at a neutral location in case the expected additional 9 inches of snow really hits in the next 24 hours. She agreed and told me she would call when she left work.

I figured I had 20 more minutes of shoveling in my old body, so I went back to work. An hour later, she called and my son told me she was ready for me to meet her. I was just about dead. I still had a small area (probably 30′ x 20′ to do), but it just wasn’t going to happen tonight. I dragged myself to the van and drove the mile to meet her.

I was so tired that I didn’t actually see her, and drove right past where she was standing. I parked the van way out in the far reaches of the lot and called her while scanning the sidewalk and parking lot. About the time she dug the phone out of her pocket in the sub-zero temperatures…I spotted her. Let’s just say that she was not very complimentary of my vision or ability to meet her somewhere. My only defense was my exhaustion…but I wasn’t going to fess up to that. So I took her criticism like a man, and saved the whining about it for this blog post. I’m considering that the better part of valor!

My snow gear is now in the washer. I completed the dinner that I had started before I went out to start shoveling (knowing full well that I wasn’t going to be up to making a full meal after shoveling). Finally, I sat down to write this blog post…since I’m physically and mentally unable to do much else. Right now, my left arm is aching in the upper arm and my shoulder is killing me. The snowflakes are the shiny-glittery kind, so they may still be lighter than the monster flakes that we sometimes get. On the downside, the darned glittery things are falling pretty quickly. I didn’t clear a “test patch” on our front walk, so I don’t know how much has fallen since I quite shoveling. My next task is to go out to the van, drive the driveway to remake our tracks, and assess how much work is ahead of me for the rest of tonight and tomorrow.

And to answer the obvious question…”yes”.

Oh, you want to know the question? It’s a two-parter (1) Have you ever considered getting a snow-blower and (2) Have you ever considered getting a blade/plow/vehicle to plow with.

Yes. Yes, gosh darn it. I consider it all the time. But then the snow melts and I find vastly more fun ways to spend money. I only consider it when I’m actually doing the shoveling. Well, I also consider it when I’m writing about doing the shoveling. Or when I’m laying in some agonizing pile in the house somewhere after having overdone it.

Not that I’d admit to having actually overdone anything. LOL