Man That’s a lot of Snow!

So yeah, we got hit with some 6 to 8 inches of snow last night. I woke up this morning and peeked out the window and saw my driveway ankle deep in snow, some areas were much deeper however due to the drifts. Now, this doesn’t seem like too big a deal right? Well, ordinarily it wouldn’t be. See, Mike would just go out there, and start the snow blower and clear out the driveway in less than a half hour. Well, he wasn’t available today. There was a brief moment where I thought to myself, “it’s okay, I don’t have anywhere to go today, I’ll just wait until Mike gets home to blow the driveway.” Well, fat chance of that happening. See, I had places to go today, my brother Marc and his family are in town from Detroit Lakes, and the kids and I were going to go and see them today. So where does that leave me, yeah you guessed it, I had to get out there and SHOVEL, yes I said SHOVEL, the entire driveway or else my butt wasn’t going anywhere. I know, why don’t you just take the snow blower to the driveway you ask? Well, that’s simple, I don’t know how to use it. I did momentarily look at the snow blower, and thought, I could probably figure this out. But then I noticed there was more to it then just turn the key and drive, and since I didn’t want to risk breaking the thing, (Mike already harasses me about my driving, could you imagine the taunting I’d receive if I broke the snow blower) or worse yet, lost a finger or two, I’d better just stick with the shovel. So, I got the kids their breakfast, skipped my morning cup of joe, hauled my butt out to the driveway and started shoveling. Now, you need to understand how large our driveway is, it’s HUGE!! It’s like, 2 ½ minivan lengths deep and 2 ½ minivan lengths wide. So I start plugging away, shoveling, shoveling, and more shoveling. I even had the kids out there with me for a little while, until Madison decided she was getting “bored.” Apparently, watching me shovel wasn’t that entertaining enough for her. So they all headed back into the house and I was alone to shovel this mammoth driveway. Other neighbors came and went, they were done long before me, (because they had snow blowers). This driveway went on for days, I was plugging right along, sliding the shovel across the driveway, up and down, up and down, with a few moments of experiencing the shovel handle practically impale my stomach as the blade end hit a rut on the ground, man I hate that feeling. This went on for what I thought was hours, at one point; Madison even came out and told me to take a lunch break. Just how long was I out there?!?! And then talk about the bloody snow at the end of the driveway, you know where it meets the street. Yeah, after the snowplows came through, the leftover snow that the plow pushed off to the side was pretty much snow BRICKS! You practically needed a sledgehammer to remove it, I'm surprised that I didn't break my shovel or my back. Well, I neared the end, my last 4-foot patch, I had an overwhelming sense of elation, kinda like when the runner sees the finish line. I couldn’t believe I was almost done. I scooped up my last pile of snow, turned to look at the enormously large driveway that took over 2 hours to shovel, and said outloud, “DONE!”