Hello 2011. Actually, the 2nd day of the New Year. Where did the last 4 weeks go? And how could I have "lost" them so easily?
Well, I have a partial answer to my own question. The first of which is the fact that I was trying to successfully finish 4 graduate courses simultaneously. I learned my lesson...the hard way.
Although I was able to decorate for the Holidays (as seen by the few accessories that join my books on the table), it felt rushed and definitely a blur. Unfortunately, the girls haven't been able to eat at our kitchen table in weeks. If I wasn't doing normal daily chores, bringing the girls to school and/or dance, or shoveling snow, I was doing school work. Sometimes I read and wrote and studied 14 hours in a day. I'm not looking for "Attagirls" but simply I am acknowledging for myself what I was able to accomplish in December.
And I learned something about myself...and that is, it doesn't serve me well to take 4 courses in a semester. I was only able to manage two B's in my Master's classes. I was very disappointed but accept this as a reminder that I am not superhuman. I was able to eeeeeeeeek out 2 more A's for the PhD...but truly, at a cost. My brain and soul were absolutely drained of all that was celebratory for the Holidays. Anyway, this was only one of the plates I was juggling over the last month. There's more...
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Ahhhhh...the snow.
My amazing husband left for an out of town job before Snowpocalypse occurred. Trying to be true to my newly acquired weather forecasting skills (lol), I was paying a great deal of attention to the scope and track of the storm. Like a kid with a new athletic trick, I was using all of the knowledge I could (without the sophisticated wx analyzing equipment) to stay ahead of the "Real" meteorologists. It seemed big and full of potential. Little did we realize the full punch until it had passed.
Yes. There was snow. No problem. I can handle everything and prove to Mark that I can be okay, even when facing a little adversity. Famous...last...words.
Problem 1. 12/11/10: Grandma Hudak's birthday. Had cake reserved at the SuperTarget bakery - in Roseville. Why? Because that's where the girls' dance studio is located, and I am there 5 days/week. Dance class is cancelled (duh!) as the city begins to shut down. Call Target - apologize but tell them I will get the cake in the morning - because of COURSE the city will be cleaned and ready for all of us to carry on with our lives. HA! Oh, and Willa also has a birthday party to get to in Woodbury - which was eventually postponed to the following day - again, all of us being hopeful that the snow will stop and they will plow.
Problem 2. still Sat. My mom (and I) need to get to the grocery store so that we can cook for my Grandma's birthday brunch on Sunday. She doesn't think she can make it in her minivan...and I have the good ol' Trailblazer. So, at around 9-ish, I head out to shovel my truck out and head over the 1 mile trek to get her...and groceries. Our awesome neighbor always brings his snowblower over when Mark is out of town. He even called me right away to say he will come by once in the morning, and then later in the afternoon "after the snow stopped". Again, HA! As promised, he was over to my house as soon as I told him I was going to try to get my mom and head to Byerly's. We were able to make some passes in our driveway, even as the snow was piling up in the street. And then, his snowblower belt broke.
Problem 3. Still Sat. Even Sat. morning, navigating around the city was a bit ridiculous. I made it to my mom's, to Byerly's, and back but not without putting my TB through the paces. My mom, the girls and I were supposed to bring dinner and dessert to my Grnadma's house Sat evening but by then, it was even worse outside and the streets were in tough shape. As an aside, if you did not have a vehicle with decent clearance, 4WD and decent driving skills, what in god's name were you doing out and about that weekend?!?!? Stupidity, arrogance and ignorance were abundant that weekend. No special birthday dinner for Grandma. We felt terrible.
Problem 4. Sunday. My neighbor's snowblower was definitely minus a working belt. Mark's snowblower only works for Mark, and even though I shoveled the garage door open, and tried to "help" my neighbor, we were completely out of options, including driving to get replacement parts. Oh, and the temp. was dropping. I still had to cook my portion of the birthday brunch, shovel, pack up everything and drive first to my mom's house (girls were on kitty patrol), then drive back over the few miles to get my Grandma. This took a lot of sweat-induced time and energy, not including a couple months off my life and that of my Chevy TB. Oh, and we still had to get Willa to the birthday party, which my uncle and I did together (thank you, Uncle Bob!) We then had to drive my Grandma back home later that afternoon, oh and a detour to pick up Willa from said birthday party.
Problem 5. Since we were already in Maplewood (Grandma), the girls and I decided to stop at Costco to pick up dog food and such. We spent a lovely, mind-numbing hour in the store, got gas and headed home (I was starting to relax a bit), only to discover that the plows had NOT made it down our small, dead end, and apparently unimportant street. As I turned onto Ames, and to avoid someone pulling out of Ames, and totally in the !)*(#)_(!*!! way, I got sucked into the snowbank. And stopped. Couldn't go anywhere...and the person whom I was trying to avoid, didn't stop to help either. (Insert a few choice words here.) We were 1 1/2 blocks from home after an exhausting weekend of snow adeventures....and I am going nowhere and now I am one of "those" people to whom I so colorfully referred in the aformentioned paragraph. Leah jumped out of the truck to run home to get our neighbor for help. Meanwhile, I got out to get the shovel that I knew was in the car, and dig my way out. I was a bit embarrassed. And mad. And tired. And I hadn't done homework in 2 days. UGH.
However, after our trip to Costco, our truck was full! I had seemingly buried the shovel and was now throwing warehouse items into the back for Willa to catch, so I could get the shovel, which was also caught on something. You know those moments where you dig deep (pun intended) for superhuman strength? I found that strength and somehow lifted stuff away and grabbed the shovel, slammed the back door and started digging out my back tires. From shear exhaustion and frustration, I managed to dig out one of my tires enough to jimmy my way out from being stuck and eased my way down our street (all the while apologizing to Willa for the lengthy string of appropriate but colorful words she heard)..ONLY TO SEE SOMEONE BARRELING TOWARDS ME!!! Are you freakin' kidding me?!?!? So, I kept going forward. Although I slowed down, I didn't stop moving forward. I'll be damned if I get stuck again. They eventually got the hint and put their truck in reverse (I didn't recognize the truck as one belonging on the street or I might have been a bit more forgiving) to get out of my way. About 8 houses from ours, I see Leah and our neighbor heading my way. The look on their faces was priceless! Leah couldn't believe I was out! Alas, I will not just drive to my house...not yet. Now, our other neighbor to the East had his Bobcat out and was trying to make sense of the street for everyone (plows were clearly not coming for us). I could see what he was doing, and patiently waited until I could more safely drive into our driveway. But wait! There is a low profile Toyota in front of me, trying to navigate its way East on Ames. What did I J U S T say?!?! If the snow is higher than the hood of your car, what makes you think you can drive through?!?! And they get stuck...right...in...front...of....my....driveway. Yep. So my 70 yr old neighbor and my 14 yr old daughter start digging this guy out. And in his defense he looked very sheepish as the elderly and the young help to move him out of the way.
Eventually, as our Bobcat-driving neighbor and everyone else on the block who was out, could see that I was waiting to pull into my driveway, the Toyota was on its way back out from Ames, another car approaches from down the street headed our way. My neighbors were awesome and gave me the "all clear" to attempt to pull into the driveway. I put the TB in LOW and told Willa to hold on. And I drove my little heart out as I pushed my way through the 2 foot snow drifts. And into my driveway, where I put the truck in park...and shut it off. My 70 yr old neighbor yelled that I could drive any of his vehicles any day. It put a smile on my weary face.
Adventures NOT done. The week that followed included TWO snow days for both girls, which put a serious crimp in my studying (with deadlines looming), a broken return line for the power steering in the TB (which I thought I had broken due to my adventurous driving over the weekend), a power outage but only on the EAST side of our house that had my husband, our neighbor and my father-in-law in a tizzy, shoveling out Mark's Jeep so I had a vehicle to drive (see pics below), and oh yes, Christmas dead ahead. Oy vey.
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| Willa and I, upon diagnosing via telephone, that the TB was in peril and could not be driven, had to dig out the Jeep we had so brazingly buried. This was Stage 1 in Operation Drive a Jeep. |
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| Stage 2 included 4WD and a lot of wishful thinking as I drove the Jeep out of the snow bank. |
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| Willa where the Jeep was just residing. We tried to move this snow as the week continued but I'm afraid Mark had to work on it when he arrived home the Sunday before Christmas. |
In any case, and needless to say, it was a trying month. Oh, and I neglected to mention that we were all trying to nurse ourselves back to health after being hit with the stomach flu (at least three of us...Leah seems to be fending off these germs with a mighty force field!). And now, after Christmas and New Year's, we are all recovering from a cold (and Willa and I are sporting twin ear infections to boot!). 2010 certainly left it's mark on the Gulstrand family. 2011 is a promising year...
