The 7th Day...

...and on the 7th day, she shoveled her ass off! Today the temperature was around 50 degrees, tomorrow, things will be frozen again. This was my only window of opportunity. I started shoveling at 9am and finished at 3pm. I took two breaks to change into dry clothes, eat a snack, and hydrate. I got out the hose and ran water down the driveway for hours, this melted through the ice to pavement, in some spots. Of course I was standing in water most of the day which totally wanked! I shoveled up about 2inches of heavy frozen slush, to reveal solid ice underneath, but with water and salt and sand, I was able to get down, and yes...back up the driveway!

Metal Snow Shovel: $24.00

Ruined Colorado Work Boots: $ 140.00

Calories Burned: (no one has ever counted that high)

Freedom: Priceless

During my confinement I rowed 82,000 meters, watched 14 movies, read 1 1/2 books, took apart, cleaned and reassembled the blower on my wood stove and watched way too much tv. I kept up with everyone's blogs, wrote 4 posts, played lots of computer games. I had to call and reschedule a few appointments, stress about money, stress about work, stress about the effects of stress, stress about rescheduling and telling people what a perfect retard I am, and how I'm stuck as a result.

Yesterday, around noon, I was down for a long row. I blast my ipod while I'm rowing and do it downstairs, so I'm in my own little world. I rowed for an hour and 15 minutes. When I was done, the dogs were going nuts, so I looked out the window, and there was someone standing there. I opened the door, it was my Dad. He said, "Call your mother, she thinks you've done yourself in."

I looked at my cell phone when I got upstairs, 10 missed calls! She'd been calling the whole time I was rowing, and sent him out to find my body, after about a half an hour, because it takes about that long to drive to my house from theirs, and he said it took him 20 minutes to get up the to the house from the road where he had parked.

After I talked to my mother, and she was calm, I went outside with my Dad and we discussed the options with the driveway. "Ya know...This is really a summer house." he blurted out.

"Thanks dad, That's helpful!" I answered. I can always count on him for gems like this. We talked about the possibility of heating the driveway in the future, that was also helpful, if I win the lottery! He brought me a square-ended garden shovel I could hack away at the frozen slush with, which was entertaining for about an hour after he'd gone. Then it started to rain and sleet, and I was frozen and getting nowhere so I gave up and went back inside.

Now, it's all behind me, and I have learned two valuable lessons:

1. Plow pretty quickly after it snows, during, if there's a lot!
2. Move back to California, you don't belong here.