Snow

I am writing this post after a blizzard hit New Jersey. I don't know what the final measurements were, but it appears that we got about 2 feet of the white stuff, with some drifts much higher than that. During the time I was outside battling against the elements, I had several snow-related thoughts which I thought I would share:

There is only one day of the year when I really want to see snow on the ground. That day is Christmas, and we missed it by about 24 hours. In a way we were lucky. If Sunday's storm had happened on Christmas Day, it would have wreaked havoc on a lot of people's travel plans. However, a decent storm a few days prior to Christmas would have been nice.

A couple of years ago I received a snowblower which my parents didn't need anymore. It has come in handy on several occasions. Unfortunately, today's conditions revealed a horrible truth about snowblowers - they only really work well in certain conditions. Specifically, the snow needs to be relatively dry and fluffy (which it was), and not more than about 8 inches deep (not the case today). I was struggling quite a bit with a blower that was frequently jamming. To my great relief, my neighbor has a heavy-duty snowblower and he came over to help me; which saved me at least an hour at the pace I was going.

Even though the snow had stopped by the time I went outside, it was very windy all day. There's nothing quite like blowing snow into a sudden gust of wind and having the snow blown right back into your face.

When I finally finished and came inside, I thought that my kids might be clamoring to go out and play in the snow. To my great relief, they were content to stay inside all day playing with their new Wii. I was tired and sore and had no desire to play in the snow; video bowling was about all that I could handle at that point.

Finally, I will close by saying that I am looking forward to the day when my children (who are now 7 and 3) can take over the snow shoveling from their old man. Then I will be happy to drink cocoa and watch them through the window while giving waves of encouragement.