The snowstorm: Dec 19th 2008

I of course did not have my camera with me on the Friday that the snow storm hit. When we left the house at 6:45 in the morning a couple of flakes were falling but when we began driving south to go to work those few flakes disappeared. By 8 o clock nothing had fallen yet (at least in the Henrietta area). By 9:30am everything was covered. It just kept coming all day long. I went down to Johns dealership for lunch since it was their Christmas luncheon. It took me over 10 minutes to clean my car off (and I didn't even do that good of a job!!). It took forever just to drive down the road and over the hill to get there too. I had very little time to eat anything and the whole time we were trying to get a hold of Johns mom to let her know that she could pick Greg up at school rather than the YMCA when school was done but to no avail. She had originally agreed to help us out by picking Greg up at the YMCA since Johns boss was having the annual Christmas party at his house that night and we wanted to attend without having to drive all the way home just to turn around and go back to Henrietta.

At 3:30 my boss called me to tell me that she had contacted the Honda manager and he OK'd the Honda girls going home at that time because of the weather. The managers from my 3 buildings were eluding her phone calls though. She said that as long as I got the OK from all 3 buildings then I could leave too. After some work I got the OK from two of the buildings but that third building still wasn't returning my phone calls or pages. I ended up staying at work until my normal time. That was a huge bummer for me. Once 5 o clock rolled around I went out to my car and spent 15 minutes cleaning it off. There was so much snow that by the time I got my windshield cleaned off my legs were buried thigh high and I had to fight to get out from where I was standing. I fought my way down the road to Johns dealership only to find out that he wasn't able to leave to go to the party yet because he now had to plow the parking lot. Seeing as how I was his only way home (or anywhere for that matter) I stayed with him to plow. I was soaked to my thighs because of having to clean off my car so I had no problem jumping out of the plow truck to help push people out of their parking spots. We ended up plowing until 8 or 8:30 that night and then we headed to the Christmas party. Cold and tired. There we stayed until around 11:45 when we got back in to the car and started on what ended up being an over hour long trip home. While plowing we had talked to Johns parents and they agreed to keep Greg overnight. (If you couldn't tell we were able to get the message to his mom to get Greg from school as that was easiest for her).

Finally home at 1 in the morning we quickly took care of the little things that have to get done to keep your house running and fell in to bed by 2. After feeling like we had barely closed our eyes it was 3 and time to get up. John had challenged me to "Walk a Mile in His Shoes" so I got up with him and we drove back to Patrick (his dealership) to plow the parking lot again. Back and forth over and over we plowed. One of the other guys got stuck in a pile of snow so to get him out we got to drive toward him and push his plow blade with our plow blade to get him free. I thought that was so cool! On an hours sleep I suppose I was easy to impress. I had brought a book with me but it was hard to read when you had to keep your eyes open for when you were plowing your pile full speed in to the main pile. That caused me on multiple occasions to come right out of my seat. John laughed when I buckled up but it was the only way I could read and ride. After quite a few caffeinated beverages and a little breakfast it was after 9 am and time to call it quits. We had the McNally family (Johns moms side of the family) party to attend that afternoon so I was desperate to get some sleep ahead of time. I told John that the walk in his shoes sucked! He laughed at me (again) and said that normally after plowing he had a 9 hour work day to get through. Point taken.

John took me home where I helped him move the cars around so that he could get his Jeep out of the garage with the plow on it and then I went to bed as he headed out to plow the driveways on his route and pick Greg up. I don't think John was able to grab more than a tiny nap on the couch before having to head to the party. I got a couple hours of sleep before I got up got ready and headed to the party (late). I have told John many times that I appreciate all the hard work that he does and all of the sacrifices (particularly sleep) that he makes to take care of our family. Now I appreciate it even more!

Since that was just Part 1 of a 2 part storm I will add that John was called in to plow again at 4am Monday morning. I got out of joining him on that one since I had to get Greg up and off to school, that is until they cancelled it. Then I panicked (Greg was supposed to buy lunch that day so I didn't worry about the fact that we were out of bread. With no school I had to pack his lunch, but before I could do that I had to get to the grocery store!!!!). John to the rescue once more called his parents who agreed to have Greg go to their house for the day. Thank goodness his dad was off of work! Anyway, I don't think John was able to enjoy much of that weekend since he was working non stop.