Post-Christmas (or, Enough Already!)

So I've gotten a few texts and read up on the blogs and it sounds like most everyone had a good Christmas.

Hotness and I had a pretty decent one, all things considered, but it was by far NOT one of the better ones either of us have ever had.
Let's back up a little and I'll you all about it, okay?


On Christmas Eve after we went out for breakfast, we came back home and did "domestic stuff" (i.e. bring up wood, shovel snow off the deck, etc...).
That evening we were going to our neighbor's to watch Christmas programs and have dinner.
The day itself was fine and things seemed to go smoothly.

We left the house and drove over to his place. He lives at the barn where he works, so there is a big looping driveway for trucks and trailers to get up and out of.
A lot of snow had fallen during the day so it was pretty slick (even for 4WD) but we managed to get into the driveway and up around the first turn. That's when things went wrong.

The truck couldn't get any traction in the snow and it slid sideways... towards the pasture fence.
Hotness tried to back up and move forward, but that only made us slide closer to the fence and hit one of the posts.
We were stuck, and one of the fender flares got smashed in the process.


We tried to dig the truck out, but it was dark and snowing. I threw down some rock salt to help melt the snow and allow us to get some traction but that was a waiting process, so we left it and walked up to the house to have dinner.
Dinner was good and the programs were fun, but they were clouded by the "my truck is stuck" atmosphere and wasn't as enjoyable as everyone had hoped.
So we left early and walked back home, deciding to wait until daylight to try and finish digging out the truck when we could see better.

When we got to the road, we saw that the garbage cans were knocked over and trash was strewn across the road. Oh great. The bear is in the area and we're walking on foot. Perfect.
So we made lots of noise all the way to our place.


I built up the fire again, Hotness grabbed a book and then I went into my office to get online when.... the power went out.

It was out all night and didn't come back until around 3:00 a.m.
And then it blinked out around 7:00 a.m. came back on and went out for good at 8:15 a.m.
Hotness stumbled out of bed shortly after the power went out that last time.
"Can we go dig the truck out? I'm not feeling very 'Christmas-y' right now and I'm just going to worry about it until it gets un-stuck", she asked.
So we got dressed, and walked over the barn with shovels in hand, where we spent 2 hours digging it out and arguing at each other. Ho ho ho, Merry Christmas.


We got the truck out and came back home. Still no power, but we apologized for being crabby at each other and opened up gifts in front of the wood stove.
Hotness got some new unmentionables.
I got a hand-made bowl.
And the cat got a new sleeping pad (filled with catnip).


At this point we were hungry, as we hadn't eaten since we got up and we spent a couple of hours digging in the snow.
Still no power, but I didn't let that stop me.
I cooked breakfast on the wood stove and it came out just swell.
Link sausage and French toast:



The remainder of the day was uneventful.
Our power came back on around 4:14 that afternoon, so we both jumped into the shower before it went off again.

We went back to the barn that evening to have Christmas dinner with our neighbor... this time we walked.


On Friday, we got up and braved a trip into town to get our mail, get breakfast, and get groceries.

The snow has been unrelenting and by this point we were worried about our roof.
There was about 2-1/2 feet of snow piled up on there.

We went next door and borrowed a ladder and tried to shovel it off, but the snow started coming down even harder.
My legs were frozen as I wasn't wearing proper winter attire, and Hotness was sore from shoveling so we went back inside.
She took a nap, but I couldn't so I got online for a bit. As I was in my office, I kept thinking about my comic books, all the comic sketches I've collected and thought how pissed I'd be if the roof collapsed on all of it.
So I got dressed in dressed in proper cold weather clothes and went back up on the roof and just turned into a snow-shoveling fool.
I got about half the snow off of it before it got dark (and therefore too dangerous to be up on the roof).

Our neighbor came over to our house for dinner and a movie last night. We had chicken mole and watched "Curse of the Golden Flower".
Then he walked back to his place and Hotness and I retired for the evening in front of the fire.


The snow is beginning to melt which is nice.
We still have half of the roof to shovel, and as the snow is melting it's getting heavier up there so I want to finish that today if at all possible.

It looks like I won't be driving my car out of our parking area for a few days. There is just too much snow piled up around it to get it out. I guess that's one way to save gas, huh?
My car is under that pile of snow in the middle.

Nothing planned for today so far other than the roof.
Hopefully this snow will melt a lot and make things easier around here.


Be back soon.....