On The 3rd Day ...There was MORE Snow!

Yes.

The Fountain in My Front Yard Pond...Frozen...AGAIN

Today is the 3rd day of March and YES...

It is snowing...

AGAIN.

Have I mentioned how much I hate winter?

It's not the season that I hate,
But rather the bitter, never-ceasing cold.

I do not like outdoor winter sports...
flying head-long down a hill at 70 miles an hour...
with only a piece of flimsy wood attached to the bottoms of my feet...
AND NO RELIABLE STEERING DEVICE???

Yeah, so NOT on my list of stuff to do in the winter.

Me?
Hey, I love the outdoors.

I like to walk in the woods.
I love swimming.
Playing kickball.
And soccer.

Spending all day outside in the sun and warm breeze...

That is what I call living.

But...
NOT in winter.

In winter the sun is down when I get home from work at 7am
and down when I go to work at 10:30 at night.

In the winter the wind  is harsh and cold...the kind that chills you to the very marrow of your bones...
and no matter how hard you try...
somehow you can never get warm.

View from the family room doors ...dark and dreary

So, seeing yet more of the wintry mix that the mid-atlantic region is famous for..
I call it sneet-ice...
falling from skies painted a dusty grey...
not unlike the color of the dust bunnies I found under the couch the other day...
The ones large enough to start getting their own junk mail...



With NO SIGN OF THE SUN...

Makes me hate the ground hog...
I am convinced he is in cahoots with the electric company...

While he is holed up in a warm den slumbering away the rest of winter,
and most likely dreaming of SPRING...
the rest of the world can only look out their windows through a haze of blowing snow
at the ice that appears to wink mockingly at us...

Spring WILL come...
it always does.

But I'd really it to hurry up and get here already!

When Is a Pain In the Neck...Not?

Yeah, well...
Here in the NorthEast we have had a hard winter.
Now I know, people from that place called Minnesota or Wisconsin or Siberia, that 20 inches of snow in 2 months is no big deal...
To you!

But here, where an overnight accumulation of 2-3 inches is considered apocalyptic, 13 inches in less than 8 hours is, to some, a sign that the world is about  to end.

Not that I feel that way at all.
I am an equal snow-accumulation hater.
I don't care if it's half an inch or 13 inches...
It's snow and unless it's a holiday,
the kind where no one has to work or go to school...
I have no use for any of it.

Don't even get me started on how much I hate the cold...
and by cold I mean anything below 65 degrees farenheit!

So, imagine my dismay when the weatherman was wrong...again...
the only job where you can lie every day and still get paid...
and the 4-8  inches over 24 hours became 13 inches in about 7.5.

While I was at work.
Over night.
Did I mention that it was 13 inches...
and that for an hour before I got off work it was sleeting and snowing?

So yeah, it was a bunch of snow covered with a bunch or those little sleety ice pellets that make a crust to rival the most awesome artisan crusty bread.

And I did not realize any of this until...
I tried to open the door to go home.
And the snow was 3-4 inches up the door so it wouldn't open.
So I pushed.
And I kicked the snice (snow+ ice=snice...like it? It's mine and I'm gonna copyright it!)
and the sneet (snow+sleet=sneet...again, it's mine...copyright to me!)
and then  I shoved the door some more cuz...
I really do not fit through a 4 inch opening...
No, really! I don't!

And then...
something hurt in my shoulder.
But there was yucky stuff on the steps and the wheelchair ramp...
not that I could discern which was which...
so I cleared the shoveled the steps...
and the walkway so I wouldn't trip over the bushes...not that  I could tell where they were...

And somewhere between the door and the bottom of the steps my shoulder popped...
like snapping yourself with a rubber band.

And it hurt...for a minute.

I managed to get my vehicle out of the snow and into the tire rut left by a larger vehicle...
made my way to my driveway...
where I got stuck about 20 feet in.

But I was home.
And I was tired.
And cold.
And wet.
And sore.

A hot shower and some ibuprofen and my shoulder still hurt.
And my neck. And shoulder blade. And my arm won't work. And my hand won't work. And my thumb has gone numb...

And a trip to a doctor, or two...
Some x-rays and an MRI...
but wait!
No MRI cuz the health insurance says no...
And a diagnosis of a "possible torn rotator cuff"...
and now I wait.
With a shoulder/arm/hand/head/neck ache...

When is a pain in the neck not a pain in the neck...
when it's a pain in the shoulder and battling insurance makes it a pain in the butt.