“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 719 (Saturday) – hard labor

Driveway snow field.

Last night, while I shoveled the short driveway and my car that was parked in it, the neighbor’s plow guy arrived to plow her side of the shared long drive. He told me several years ago that if my car wasn’t parked in that driveway, it was easier for him to plow, and he would also clear my spot, so when thinking ahead, I try to have the car not parked on that side. 

While I shoveled at one side of my house, he plowed at the other side. When I was done the short driveway and the plow was gone, I saw that with the precision of a surgeon, he managed to avoid plowing even one inch of my side of the driveway. 

Important lessons were learned from the last snowstorm after failing to shovel the short driveway and it was a mess for over a week. The long driveway leads to the kitchen door, which is my preferred ingress/egress point, and it seemed wise to not repeat the mistake and take care of it this morning.

After the hard labor.

After a decent night's sleep, a cinnamon bun, and lots of coffee, the rearrangement project commenced. The snow was still mostly light and dry and sparkling in the sunshine on top, but was getting heavier and wetter in contact with the asphalt. It was steady work, and included a repeat of the classic pushing, scraping, and tossing maneuvers. The core was engaged, and so were the legs. A couple times, a light wind came along just as the snow left the shovel during the toss over the picket fence and there was a light face wash. It was invigorating. The end result was not perfect. There is still a narrow snow ledge on the property line, but I could do only so much. At least now there are two ways to safely exit the house.

The sunshine and fresh snow made for a perfect day for snowshoeing, and the dryness of the snow was perfect for rug cleaning, but there was no energy left for either of these after more than an hour of steady labor in the driveway. Trudging through woods or moving the kitchen table to drag the kitchen rug outside were ruled out. 

Life is all about choices, and in the maturity of middle age, I have chosen to accept that I don’t need to do everything in one day, and it doesn't always have to be perfect. Fear of missing out was kicked to the curb years ago, and it was liberating. I also didn’t want to be completely hobbled for dance class on Sunday.

The rewards for the labor were hot soup and binging Succession on HBOMax. There was baked macaroni made with five, maybe six types of cheese – all the random remnants from the deli drawer. There was hot cocoa. It was a great day of toil followed by rest and relaxation. The quads and hamstrings feel kind of smoked, and my arms are twitching, but it's all good. If it snowed every day in the winter I would be in amazing shape.