Today when I woke up, it was....snowing.  So I put on my sweats and resigned (nearly) myself to another day at home.  But by breakfast time, the snow had stopped and the sky was BLUE!  After checking the forecast, I quickly determined that immediately after breakfast I needed to organize my two-page list into something easier to follow.  This took me about 15 minutes.  I ended up dividing the list by shop, and got it into some semblance of order--four stores.  (It wasn't all food--we needed some other things too.)

My husband was taking a bit longer to get ready so I decided that I would help by shoveling the driveway.  Now anyone who has lived with plows knows that when they plow, the stuff they push to the side rapidly becomes like concrete--a wall across the bottom of the driveway.  A lot of the time you can step on it, and not sink in.  We have a lovely huge scoop that you push into the snow and then tip up or turn over instead of throwing the snow with the shovel.  The only problem was that since our neighbour had kindly blown us out with his snow blower last week, I had to either push the scoop over vertical walls of snow, or push it all the way up the drive (long enough for two vehicles end to end with room to spare) to the area that hadn't been blown.  I estimate that I shoveled upwards of 35 scoops of snow.  It may have been more.  I wasn't counting at the time.  My estimate is based on a guess of how many scoops I pushed to a total of 6 locations--to the garage, up the steep bank on the far side of the driveway, up the short bank to the near side of the drive, to the front of the van on the far side, to the side of the steps at the front of the house (we have quite a wide side yard), and to the banks at the edge of the street beside the driveway.  (I am really going to have to find a photo of our side yard to give you an idea.)  It took me 30-40 minutes.  When I was done, I was hot, sweaty, and my face was beet red.  I went inside to change and cool off before we left for town.

This photo was taken last year, but it gives an idea of the distance from the van to the road and the van to the house.

We shopped and ate lunch, and shopped some more, and it was after 3:00 before we got home.  Then I had to put it all away.  The children helped a lot, and that was really nice.  Then the fatigue set in.  I was slightly revived by a cup of tea, but I am very tired tonight.  I am so glad that we got out, and my fridge is full, my freezer will be full (when I get the meat repackaged to freeze), and my shelves no longer look so bare.

Now I have to decide what to do tomorrow.  I sure hope I wake up with more energy than I have right now.   We have a friend coming over in the afternoon, so that will mean we only have school in the morning.  I have to decide whether to do a regular morning schedule, or revise it to get some afternoon stuff in.  I also need to get the meat in the freezer and figure out what to eat.  Right now I don't even know what I wrote on the menu.