The Saints Came Marching In and Stay Tuned for Round Two!

I have to admit that since 'How 'bout Them Stillers' weren't in the running this year, I was pulling for The Saints because I just love rooting for the underdog (and Peyton Manning was a very gracious loser!).

So anyway, after the big snow (or Snowmageddon as it's being called) and all the shoveling I did on Saturday, I awoke on Sunday to... well let's just say that I'm not sure I'm glad I awoke!

I hurt that badly.

And I felt like such a wimp.

Before my move here to the Big City it was nothing to find myself shoveling out my driveway at any given moment and sometimes even twice a day.

But now I live here. They aren't supposed to get this kind of snow here.

Mother Nature is a bitch and my shoveling muscles deserted me sometime in November.

After a breakfast of prescription strength Ibuprofen I cut out a purse and then took a nap. Every muscle in my neck, back, and arms were screaming. I almost took Hans up on his offer to stay home and not go to our friend's house to watch the Super Bowl but I didn't want to be a party pooper.

And after we got to the party (they actually had a friend shuttling people from a church parking lot to their house because the snow left their street with only one lane) I felt like a heel because everyone there had shoveled snow, and some of these people were older than me!

It was around half time, and after we'd eaten tons of great food, and sang Happy Birthday to three people (the youngest being 50!), and I was trying to fasten my glow-in-the-dark bracelet to my wrist, that the hostess broke out the drugs.

And everyone was clamoring for their fair share.

I very primly refused, but only because I'd brought my own (in the form of Ibuprofen).

"Are you sure?" Elaine asked, and she shook the bottle in my face for emphasis.

"I'm fine." I smiled and watched as she moved on.

"Does anyone else need some Aleve?" she shouted. "Who all shoveled today?"

I'm just hoping there was enough to go around!

And now our fabulous SEVERE WEATHER FORECAST TEAM who never have anything to report are almost wetting their panties because another snow storm is supposed to dump an additional ten inches of snow on us tomorrow.

I'll be sure to show Hans where the shovel is!

My saga continues

I'm certainly no stranger to snow. For goodness sake I grew up in this Snowbelt and we often refer to it as living in the Tundra. But the snow that we've received this month is kicking my butt! The post office would not deliver my mail this week because my mailbox was unreachable. I've been shoveling since Monday and today during yet another marathon session I felt like I might succeed when I heard something that sent chills up my spine. It started out as a muted rumbling and then got louder and louder. Oh God no!! I almost wept. It was THE SNOWPLOW (or that thing of which nightmares are made) and as it worked it's way up my road, it churned up mountains of icy snow that it quickly deposited at the ends of nicely shoveled driveways, and in front of finally cleared mailboxes.


"You will not plow me in dammit!" I swore to myself, and clutching my dented, worn out shovel, I stood in front of my mailbox and dared him to even come close.


Mr. Plowman and I had a little staredown until he wisely (probably married and has received this same look from his wife at one time or another) veered into the middle of the road steering clear of me until he was way past me and then went on his merry way.


"Bastard" I muttered and continued to shovel.


One of the reasons I'm so pissed is because my mailbox was beheaded by a plow in December and had been hanging on by a thread even after Hans' and my attempt to keep it in place with huge tie wraps (or zip ties or whatever you want to call them) until it can be permanently fixed this spring.


Our feeble efforts lasted until today when my mailbox finally gave up the ghost and toppled into the snow!


An hour later along with two wire coat hangers, wire cutters, string, screw drivers, a hell of a lot of swearing, and completely frozen toes and fingers, I think I secured it (until the next snowplow that is!).



Then another plow came along and I was ready to give him the finger even though he was on the other side of the street. He rolled down his window and told me to get in my driveway.


Since he had the advantage of driving a huge weapon and I only had my trusty shovel, I obeyed.


Then he carefully plowed out the end of my driveway making two very close passes past my mailbox (very important here) without hitting it, and saving my poor back from breaking any further.



I'll throw out my voodoo plow truck later.

This seriously cut into my packing and moving time and after standing on a heating pad to thaw my feet I was ready to go again.

Oh yeah, I had to use a heating pad since I couldn't run hot water in my bathtub. Why? Because I just noticed that my tub has a leak and is leaving a lovely stain on my ceiling tiles in my family room downstairs!!!!!

I'm almost delirious with all the fun I'm having!

This is my mailbox after I tied it back on with string.





It was too wet for Duct tape!










It's difficult to see, but this is my driveway as seen from the road (and from inside the vehicle).

This is the last room that finally got painted. See the border up by the ceiling? I had to tape both the top and bottom because in addition to painting the walls I also painted the ceiling. I don't have a ladder so I used a chair and being all of 5 feet tall I had to stand on my toes to get the tape on the top part!

Not fun.

And I had this same situation in one other bedroom too.

And here again is the before picture. All of this stuff and more got packed up and brought to the Big City tonight.

Here is most of it packed and sitting in my kitchen. It was then carried down a flight of steps, loaded into the SUV, driven to the Big City, and hauled UP even more stairs to Hans' apartment!

This is only the first batch!!!!

And after today it may be the last.

Treading Water...

... is a term I use when I feel that I'm not getting anything done!
I've mentioned in past posts that I'm getting my house ready for sale.
I have a way of picking the right (wrong!) time to make major decisions in my life and this is one of them! I only wish now that I'd have rented these past 12 years instead of having bought my house. But if I had rented, I can guarantee you that housing prices would be going for double what I paid for mine and then I'd be kicking myself for renting.
Today I finally painted the last bedroom which also happened to be my sewing room. I emptied it yesterday and today when I woke up I vowed to hit it hard and not stop until I was done.
That's what I planned.
But since when does anything go as planned.
I had one wall remaining that needed to be taped off when I ran out of painter's tape. It so happens that the previous owners put up wallpaper border sans sizing. Which means that if I try to take down the border, I rip off the cheap textured finish on the walls. So in addition to taping windows and doors, I had to tape the top and the bottom of the border.
Sure, a quick trip to Wal-Mart will fix that.
I hadn't counted on the blizzard that apparently hit while my back was turned.
After I forced my storm door open, I had to shovel my way to Hans' SUV (I borrowed it this week in order to move massive amounts of my junk) and as his vehicle was only about 5 feet from my door this should tell you something.
I had already spent an hour and a half shoveling my driveway out when I arrived home on Monday (it usually takes 45 minutes) but now the end of my drive (where it meets the road) was drifted heavily and no vehicle was getting through that! So about an hour later, after I shoveled some key areas, and cleaned about 8 inches of heavy snow (separated by layers of ice from the freezing rain) off of the SUV, I finally arrived at Wal-Mart.
But my purse was at home.
I kid you not.
After retrieving my damned purse I was back at Wal-Mart and while they did have the lavender 'quick release' painter's tape that I needed, they only had it in the jumbo (read expensive) size and I only needed enough for ONE wall!
Let me also mention that I did not wash my hair this morning as I intended to remain home bound, and an hour of sweaty shoveling with a hat on my head did nothing to improve the situation.
It dawned on my as I was leaving the store that my outfit of oversized, paint covered sweat pants, teamed with my holey, wine stained (red wine spilled all over it last night) long sleeved T-Shirt, and clad in Vet Tech girl's third grade boots (one size too big but perfect for me after all these years) that I have become a typical Wal-Mart shopper.
Heaven help us all!

I found this among my sewing stuff as I was cleaning. It's an old J.C.Penney bag from Sept 30, 1942 (over 56 years old) and it holds 3 1/2 yards of sharkskin fabric at 49 cents a yard! A friend of my great-grandmother passed away several years ago and her daughter gave my mom a lot of old sewing stuff. I ended up with this.

I have no idea what to do with it. It's a creamy off white woven and has such an interesting texture. Someday I'll look up the care etc... of this fabric but since I'm not a very good sewist, I'd hate to ruin it by cutting into it.






Here's the bag with the receipt.
















Here's a view of the fabric.












The sewing room before I emptied it.











I've filled 4 big plastic storage bins with sewing junk and since Hans has a one bedroom apartment with minimal closet space I ended up doing this.

These are reusable storage bags that you fill with clothing and bedding and then suck the air out of with your vacuum cleaner.


Here is a bag of my summer clothes before sucking out all of the air.



And after sucking out all the air.
It does flatten them but they are still heavy. But at least I can store them in the basement laundry room for the winter and then I can reverse the process this spring with my winter clothes.









Tomorrow I need to load an amazing amount of heavy tubs into Hans' vehicle for a trip into the Big City and then next week I hope to tackle even more cleaning up, packing, Salvation Army dumping, and all that jazz!

BTW, I was very honored to receive the Kreativ Blogger award from Angelia and Cindy. I plan on acknowledging that tomorrow.
Thanks ladies!