February Freeze

Several people have emailed asking why I haven’t posted lately.  The main reason for the lack of posting is because we are in the dead of winter and, therefore, I have nothing to write about.  It has been STUPID cold here and it has snowed every couple days, which requires trips out into the stupid cold to clear the driveway. Inevitably, once you finish and go inside to admire the results of your snow shoveling through the window while sipping hot chocolate, you see the city snow plows come by and push the snow that was in the road onto your driveway.  Lucky you, you now get to venture back out into the stupid cold to clear your driveway again…

Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat.

Sometimes I get lucky with an easy to shovel 2" dusting like this:

 

Other times it it takes a bit more work when there is an 18"+ high wind blown drift across the front of our house. (a special thanks Google for somehow knowing that adding faux falling snow flakes to my photo would emphasize the snow):

 

And, oh great, it is going to snow again tomorrow evening.  This morning, it was -2 degrees when I got up at 4:40am to go to the gym.  NEGATIVE TWO DEGREES and that didn’t factor in the wind chill.  I’ve stopped looking at the wind chills because it is just depressing.

I just hope that we don't wake up to this sight out our front door:

The only good thing about going out into the stupid cold to shovel the driveway is that it is an opportunity to get outside.  Albeit, it is stupid cold outside, so all you want to do is finish whatever brought you out into the stupid cold so that you can go back inside where it is warm.  However, being cooped up indoors for months on end is making me more than a little stir crazy.  I love being outside and, even though I am a pale-a$$ white boy, I need some sunshine.

This is what we see when we look out the window, wishing it was 70-80 degrees warmer outside... Yes, the Christmas tree stayed up late into January:

 

Spring can’t get here fast enough… too bad that #$%@ groundhog said we are in for 6 more weeks of winter.  Ugh. Did I mention that it is really cold outside?

In other news, for better or worse, I am serving another year on the neighborhood HOA board.  This is mainly because the other 4 people that were on it last year are stepping down for various reasons (moving, workload at work, etc.) and I can, occasionally, be a compassionate person.  Yes, I felt bad for leaving the new board members high and dry, so I volunteered to do it another year.  Of course, that prior experience landed me the title of President.  This is not something that I was wanting, but whatever, I can do it for a year.  A couple of the new people are “go getters,” so I thought one of them might step up and do it.  At least someone did step up to do the treasurer position, arguably the most difficult position of them all.  Feel free to refer to me as “Mr. President” from here on out.

Finally, in case I forgot to mention it: IT IS REALLY, REALLY, REALLY COLD OUTSIDE!