Digging Out

Yeah, the snowed in Christmas thing was okay. . . sort of.  Yesterday.

But not today.

I woke up this morning and looked out the front window.  The city crews had either forgotten about our street, or we were waaaaay down on the list. . . like last.

Yet, the postponed Christmas dinner was on.  And the gym was open.  Because, of course, all the other streets in town had been cleared.

My plan fior the day was simple:  get to the gym and work out hard, then go to Mom and Dad’s house and eat an embarrassingly large helping of prime rib and yorkshire pudding (soaked in gravy).

And there was no way a two-foot deep blanket of snow covering the driveway and street was going to stop me.

I informed the hubby of my plans.  He suggested that we wait a little while to see if the street crews showed up.  I told him, gently, that that was not an option.  I explained that the snowbound phase was over, whether Mother Nature liked it or not.  And that I wasn’t going to be bound by the street crew schedule, either.

He sighed.

I stomped back into the closet and put on my shovelling clothes.  Actually, I had to decide on some shovelling clothes, since I’ve haven’t shovelled snow since I’ve been married.  Over a layer of workout spandex, I tossed on sweats and sweatshirt.  Then I broke out my old Dexter hiking boots that I’ve had since high school.  They’re in great shape!  Probably because I never go hiking, and I rarely shovel snow.  I then donned my winter coat and my cute red, black and white stripped hat with the little puff ball on top.  Anyway.  When I emerged from my bedroom, hilarity ensued:

“You look ridiculous, Mom,” said Snacky.

Anthony was too busy laughing to comment.

“Whatever,” I told  them, “we’ll see who laughs last.”  I was pretty sure it wouldn’t be me, though.

“I’ll be out soon, Honey,” said the hubby, as I stomped out the door.

I surveyed the driveway and the street in front of our house. There was no way around the fact that the entire driveway needed to be cleared.  Not too mention enough of the street so that our car could get some traction and crawl on out of the neighborhood.   A lesser woman would have been intimidated by the job at hand.

Thankfully, I was not alone in my labors.  Our dog Princess loyally volunteered to come out with me.   Not that she was much help.  But she’s pretty darn cute, so she gets extra credit just for hanging out with me.

I had half of the driveway done when the hubby came out.  He prides himself on being an expert at shovelling snow, and got right down to business.  Not too long after that, Snacky came out.  He gave me a little break.  And I do mean little.  He moved about 10 shovels full of snow and then claimed HE needed a break.  Then out came Anthony.   He really got after that snow.  I told Snacky he should be embarrassed that his little brother was working harder than he was.

Snacky was not at all embarrassed.  Snacky prides himself on not unnecessarily breaking a sweat.  He takes energy conservation to new levels.

Anyway…

We got the driveway and the street in front of our house cleared.  After an two hours.

Mere mortals would consider that their workout for the day.  But the stairmaster was calling.

We all got our workout stuff on and got ready to go to the gym.  Workout for me, hoops for hubby and the boys.  We saddled up and hopped in the car, opened the garage door and peeled out of the driveway, hoping for enough momentum to launch us into the tire track trail (generously left by the people in big trucks that you can actually drive in this weather) leading out of our neighborhood.

Not so easy, of course.  Another half-hour of the hubby launching the car back and forth, alternating with bouts of the hubby shovelling more snow out of strategic spots (which I helpfully pointed out for him), ensued before we finally managed to manuever the car into position and crawl down the block and out of the neighborhood.  As we squirted out of our block and onto the (of course) cleared cross street, we were all ridiculously happy about our new-found freedom from the confines of our block!

The rest is history.  I got a great (second) workout in.  We made it to my parents’ for a great dinner (thanks Mom and Dad!).  And when we got home, the hubby and I broke out the heating pad and massage pillow to soothe our aching bodies!