Mad at the snow

I just got back in from clearing the driveway of snow. Again. It's probably (no joke) the 20th time this winter I have done it. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that we'd still have the snow from the first blizzard (December 8th) in February. I think there have been about 5 days of melting, none of which have been serious or have resulted in an significant loss of snow pack.

I really love winter. I am fond of saying that I'll take the coldest, snowiest, windiest day of winter over the hottest, muggiest day of the summer. And it's still true. But I have to say that this winter has really broken me. As Heidi said in her blog post yesterday, the snow is still pretty when it's coming down, but it feels almost malevolent at this point, almost as if it's just another punch in the gut when we're down. I look back to the days right after the first blizzard and we were marveling at how much snow we had. Little did we know that we hadn't seen anything yet. The best description of the winter came from Heidi last night as we were leaving the school carnival - in a word, wearying.

It makes the drama of the purchase of the new snowblower seem quaint - could you imagine how we would have made it through without a dependably starting snowblower? It's more than paid for itself this winter alone. Even if we don't have to use it for another 5 years (doubtful), I still don't regret it.

But here's where I am with the winter at this point - and it's really posing quite a conundrum for me. Yeah, I'm so sick of shoveling and snowblowing, of snow pack in the wheel wells of the car, of dangerous looking icicles and even more dangerous looking ice dams on my roof. But I'm also amazingly sick and tired of people bitching about it. It really is, as Joan said, like being mad at the dirt. It hasn't done us any good - in fact, I think we're all (myself definitely included in that blanket statement) just feeding back on ourselves, creating more drama than is necessary. I know that I get caught in the loop of "what the fuck am I going to do if my roof is trashed?" but seriously, all that does is give me an ulcer. The best we can do at this point is wait till spring and see what happens. No amount of catastrophizing or worrying will change the outcome now.

So from now on, I'm done bitching about winter. Whenever I'm tempted to become irate with the forecast of snow (2 to 4 inches before the weekend's out), I'll just think of this little ditty that I stumbled across on YouTube.