Minnesota Misery

So we are still here, still in Minnesota and still covered in snow. Shortly after my kids “snow-cation” my husband blurts out “if it’s gonna snow I want it to snow in record levels. Like the most snow ever.” I told him then and I reiterate now “Don’t tempt fate!” Well, fate was tempted and she responded (of course fate is a woman, she’s listening to all those complaints and constantly remembering the things we want her to forget) Cue a blizzard. We got something like 12 inches in one day. On the surface that doesn’t sound bad at all, right? A foot of snow should be easy to shovel or move. Um no, just very very no. We have lots of wind over here which means snow drifts. It’s at this point where I seriously recommend watching Little House on the Prairie. Poor Charles Ingalls would have one success then the weather would change and his life would suck again and he’d lose it all (fate can be a real b*&%h can’t she) But, to be more specific, there’s and episode in which the Ingalls family experiences a blizzard. One particular scene sticks out in my memory - there’s a rope strung from the house to the barn; so that whoever goes out to check on the animals can make it back again (that or they had an incredibly smart trained horse - more firewood Bunny (Laura Ingalls apparently had a sense of humor when it comes to naming horses)). In the episode it was snowing and there are high winds so it was freezing cold and you couldn’t see a thing (maybe the horse would have faired better?). Back to non-TV Minnesota and the wind here IS crazy and our snow drifts are now reaching record breaking heights. My husband got his snow; and, for a while, it wasn’t so cold that going outside was life threatening. My older daughter wanted get out to take some “cute instagram pics” but the younger one had more architectural asperations. In the end, my kids dug a tunnel (an actual tunnel) - they proposed digging all the way to my office in the barn for me. I politely declined because I can’t see myself with six or seven glass jars and a hot cup of tea crawling across the yard to my office. . In the end we did get to go outside! Fresh Air and blinding sunlight (when everything is sparkly white the reflections are insane. Sunglasses are definitely called for). Thank goodness: it kept them busy for almost an hour!

As a sidebar: I remember when the kids were babies and toddlers and I would put on Baby Einstein or Disney Jr to get enough time to have a shower. Now my kids are teens who sequester themselves into their respective rooms; yes, that means that I am not seeing everything they do… But now I can’t see ANYTHING they do! Which honestly is more stressful for me. The internet is forever; when they do stupid things there’s a record of it and most probably a picture. My parents had the ‘baby in the bathtub’ pictures; I’m going to have an archive to choose from. My husband and I are in agreement that they should not have TV’s in their rooms. However; that has to be our most pointless rule, because they have computers. That’s, in truth, all they need; with the computer they can access YouTube, Netflix, Hulu and Amazon. So when they are home I end up ‘accidentally’ going upstairs a lot. “Did you need your backpack?” “I have your laundry.” “I thought I heard you call me.” With them outside ‘sort of’ hanging out together I had an hour off from worrying about the internet and all that goes with it. You can’t text and dig at the same time, right, right? That’s how I feel and what I want to believe so it’s true… la la la I can’t hear you.

My husband did get out his snow blower but after hours of pushing it around he only got the garage pad cleared off. For my part I dug out our porch. When I say dug out I mean DUG out. With the wind we had about three feet of snow piled on our porch - I would open the door and just get a strange look from the dogs “really mom?”. That had to be one of my least favorite jobs ever…ever. While ‘happily?’ Shoveling out the snow I came to the frightening realization that there isn’t anywhere for the snow to go - I resorted to throwing shovels full of snow off of the porch. Essentially that means that the steps and path leading to the porch are covered. Impassable covered, I would say that the pile is around waist height at this point. My office, too, got snowed out; yup one of my lovely dogs managed to open the door and I didn’t notice in time to keep a drift out of there. Of course that needed to be shoveled and swept out - quickly. But whilst walking over to the barn where my office is located I got to a point in the yard where I would have had to swim or tunnel over (too bad my girls were at school, a tunnel would really be handy now). The snow was at my waist and I really feel like there was some more give in there so the next step could end up over my head. I can see the headlines now “Idiot woman freezes to death in her own back yard; only to be discovered by her chihuahua (sad emoji)”. I turned around and high tailed it back to the house; I couldn’t traumatize my chihuahua like that. After returning home from work and watching me struggle for a while my husband ended up shoveling a path to the office. Bless him he spent more than an hour shoveling the snow out of my office ~ sometimes I think I’m so lucky; and then sometimes I think this snow is his fault anyway. I went in and took care of the detail work and generally getting it all cleaned up. When he finally came in sweaty and tired all I could think was: want some more snow NOW? (But I’m a good wife (sometimes) and didn’t say it out loud, so I wrote it here). Happy Winter