OK... it's been about a year since I last communicated with my adoring fan base. I left you off as I was exploring publishing options and I fully intend to get that saga up to date. However, today's circumstances require me to honor an older tradition I have established on this blog. Yes, dear ones, it is time for a much anticipated (dare I say longed for?) winter wimp's whine.
I actually can't believe it has taken me until February to regale you with my winter woes because they started fast and fiercely this year with a mammoth storm of 24+ inches. It hit the night before Thanksgiving and resulted in a five day power outage!
Oops, I've gotten ahead of myself here. I have a one day a week job on Wednesdays. It's about a 15-20 minute drive from my house. I was at work when the storm began. My drive home took me 2&1/2 hours! I am not kidding. I hit a lengthy detour right off the bat, downed power lines, a downed tree that took road crews almost half an hour or so to remove, and finally, I was a couple of miles down a back road nearing my home only to find it blocked by a fallen tree. Luckily I was able to turn around, tortuously retrace my journey, and find an alternate route home. Welcome to winter Cyr... enjoy!! A few hours after I got home the aforementioned power outage occurred around 11PM. And let's not forget to mention how hard shoveling the wet, heavy snow was, or the cost of getting plowed out and spending two days in a hotel. (Please note I spent the first two days gutting it out in my freezing home with no plumbing, but enough is enough!)
Now Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday so the timing really added major insult to the brutal injury. My daughter and I spent the day huddled and starving. At least I hadn't invited guests this year so the disappointment was contained. A friend with a generator let me stash my food items at her house and eventually we did get a feast.
After the Thanksgiving debacle things improved. December was fairly snow free, lulling me into a sense of false hope. I mean surely the massacre of Turkey Day paid for all and we beleaguered New Englanders deserved a respite... right?
That hope began to fade with a snowfall of a few inches on January 4. The snow was deep enough for my driveway to need plowing. I didn't move to a rural area to live by the roadside folks. I have an exceedingly long driveway and plowing it is expensive. I have the best plowguy in the world and he has been undercharging me for years but it still adds up.
The weather cleared and warmed up after this storm. You would think that would be a good thing... not so much. The next storms were mild rain, not enough to remove the remaining compacted snow layer in my driveway, but just the perfect amount to turn it into a layer of thick, glare ice. Luckily I am retired so I can be housebound for days with little stress, raising winter wimpery to an art form.
My daughter is not so lucky. She has to drive to work 6 days a week and was bitching about the driveway needing sanding. She was barely making it up and down even with her 4-wheel drive car and I was hoping the weather would change and melt the ice, sparing me the expense of sanding.
On a Wednesday morning after a few days of icy conditions my plow guy called. Another snowstorm was on its way and he wanted to sand my driveway in the next day or so in preparation for plowing. It's not easy to plow snow off a layer of sheer ice... plowing requires traction you see. I readily agreed to the sanding, but the dread gods of winter decided to punish me for not sanding sooner.
As previously mentioned, I work one day a week and also combine that with taking an elderly friend out to dinner. Wednesday is the day. I got down the driveway fine, just enough slipping and sliding to get the blood flowing. I was heading back up it at 9PM and got stuck about 2/3 of the way to my house. The setting sun and the falling temps had created a hard freeze and my driveway could have been used as a luge run.
I am 63 years old and people, I DO NOT walk on ice! Walking on ice in the dark and freezing cold - NOT GONNA HAPPEN... nope, nope and nope! I called my daughter in the house to let her know I was stuck and would wait with the car until AAA arrived. She offered to come out and help me walk to the house, but I didn't want her to risk that on my behalf.
So I sat in my dark, cold car for 40 minutes or so waiting for AAA. I suspected all was not well when I saw the AAA guy walking up my driveway with a flashlight. Sure enough, he informed me the ice was so bad he wouldn't be able to tow me out... towing also requires traction. He didn't have any. My driveway was a nightmare of icy hell. He did however walk a terrified lady over said driveway from wintery hell safely to her home. I will always hate winter and I will always love that man!
So at 10PM I am leaving a message on my plow guy's phone explaining my car is stuck in the driveway and blocking access and egress. I make a special plea on behalf of my daughter who needs to leave the house by 6:30AM to get to work.
He shows up at the crack of dawn, sands my driveway AND brings my car up to the house for me. How much do I worship this guy? Seriously, it's beyond love. This rescue occurred on January 22.
January 25 brought a few more inches of snow requiring plowing. Then January 28th hit us with another 24 inches or so, more plowing, more shoveling. I am writing this on February 8. Snow has been falling since the pre-dawn hours and is predicted to continue until tomorrow.
Winter brings other problems than just driveway, plowing and shoveling issues and the expenses therein. If the conditions are "just right" you get ice dams on your roof. This doesn't happen every winter, but of course, this winter I have them.
Without going into gory details the result of ice dams is water backs up under your roof shingles and leaks into your house in unexpected places. As I write this I am being driven crazy by the sound of water dripping into a bucket ( and doing who knows what damage to my house on its journey, read $$). Yep, you can add the water drip torture to my list of winter woes.
I discovered the leaks yesterday and put in a call to my handyman who will have to risk life and limb in today's snowstorm to clear my roof. This guy is another awesome person who has saved me in winter (and summer for that matter) on more occasions than I care to count. He undercharges me too and if I ever come into money he and my plow guy are at the top of my list for people I will share with joyfully. That being said, the expenses of winter kill me and I haven't even gotten to fuel costs.
It's really depressing to go much further here. I keep the house mostly between 62 and 65 degrees, with the occasional splurge to a couple hours at 68 when my kid and I just can't get warm. Propane prices went way down this year thank God, but it is still more than I can afford. ( I may write a blog about living in debt someday, but winter has me depressed enough without going there, thank you very much.)
As you can see, I have posted some winter pics of my house to illustrate my misery. They are from winter's past, but if I took new photos today they would be virtually identical so why bother?
Do you think if I posted this on GoFundMe.com people would chip in enough loot for me to retire to a warmer clime? Hmmmmm... I may just have to explore that possibility. For now I shall slip back into hibernation mode, praying for and dreaming of Spring. Cyr out.
