Coldlanta Day 2

I'm "stuck" at home for the third consecutive day. The snow started falling Sunday night around seven and since that time I have been inside the home with few exceptions.

I had trouble as many people do who aren't used to being at home all day. Work was tough to accomplish since we don't have access to our work hard drive at home. Getting organized to do personal things was a lost cause. I couldn't even get enough motivation to work on my stalled book project. So I exercised as I've done almost every day this year.

On Monday we tried sledding. The sled was an improvised recycling bin cover and the results weren't great. I tried again. This time I had an audience. Our neighbors across the street and next to them were outside. One neighbor shoveled her driveway while the other made calls on a Bluetooth. I made my first sledding attempt. It's hard to get any momentum despite our pretty steep hill. I tried once on my butt, once on my stomach and a final time on my butt. Yeah, it's not the same as being a kid. You have no fear and don't realize when you're tired.

I saw my neighbor and the shoveling and thought that my driveway could use a cleanup. We've been in our house almost one year and have not said hello to them. We joke that it's a commune because the driveway is filled with as many as four cars and there's often a car parked in the street. I walked over and introduced myself to the woman who opened the door. She was friendly and let me borrow the shovel.

I was loaded. I had a shovel, my jacket, and my iPod. The only issue with the iPod was that the cord got stuck on the shovel a couple of times when I switched from leading with my left to leading with my right. My next-door neighbor was in the midst of his own shoveling project when I started and at first it felt like a contest. He gave up after 30 minutes. I felt like I had barely started at that point. I went side to side but carved one line up the side for variety. It was freaking endless. I later told the wife that we needed to make more money to install heaters in the driveway for the one time in five years that we get this kind of snow. I took off my jacket. It wasn't that cold. At the time the trees were starting to drip which meant that it was above freezing. Shoveling wasn't too hard but a lot of spots had ice under the snow which was hard to remove.

I came inside after my labors and the wife gave me a cup of hot chocolate. We relaxed as I warmed up. Physical labor can be a nice distraction. I wouldn't say that I want to do it for a living, though.