I Feel Like Carrie Bradshaw

I'm having a Carrie Bradshaw moment. I am sitting in front of my computer, which is situated on my desk, in front of a window in my apartment on the second floor, facing the main street. I could totally be Carrie Bradshaw of the Midwest. love of shoes? Check. Love of designer bags? Check. Guy issues? Well not now, but I have had plenty in the past so I'm counting that as check!

Anyway now that I have had my Sex and the City moment, moving on to my real life since my Big is not showing up any time soon.

Today as yesterday promised was crazy busy. I was in before seven am, changing the schedule, from 8 to 3 I was following around Danielle.... I'm going to stop myself here. It is 10:40 p.m. and I have to be up at 6 am tomorrow. I'm just going to skip ahead to my sidewalk story and come back to work war stories later maybe tomorrow, Friday or for sure on Saturday.

SIDEWALK WAR STORIES

I normally don't shovel the driveway at home. My entire life my brother or father did it for my mother and I. When I moved to MY TOWN, I moved into a historic home with a plethora of sidewalks. My mother proudly presented me with a shovel for when the time came. First dumping of snow (5 inches), I was fine, I hit the sidewalk with gusto and shoveled myself out. Up to Christmas I was fine, shoveling myself out each time. Well, for those of you who remember the Midwest had a little bit of a snow storm over Christmas. I was fine with this because I had traveled up to my parents home and was safely snuggled in there. I knew that my sidewalk at home in MY TOWN was accumulating snow... but I was hoping a neighbor would be kind and shovel/blow it out for me. I returned Sunday after being gone four days to no such luck. I was up to 8-10 inches of snow. No problem right? My Dad had replaced my Mom's shovel with one with a steel tip edge so it would last longer against the concrete. It wouldn't even get down to the bottom of the concrete! The snow had compacted and formed a nice 2-4 inch layer of ice and on top of that snow. I called my Dad in frustration. His suggestion salt and ice chipper. After running to 3 different stores in town I was the proud owner of a 24 dollar ice chipper and a big jar of salt. I am came back determined to win the war with the sidewalk. The snow on top of the ice took me an hour to clear. Then for the next half hour I tried chipping. The ice chipper just bounced off. I salted. I used it all. Still no love. I called my parents defeated. The sidewalk was clear (sort of) and the city couldn't fine me. I was done. 2 Blizzards and a plunge in to subfreezing weather happened. I cleared my sidewalk each time, using my shovel to scrape snow off the hills of ice beneath. It was pain. The ice still was there. The ice had thought it had won, but low and behold I was forming a plan. Yesterday sun and double digits and a forecast for the next few days to be *gasp* above freezing. My coworkers joked about buying shorts. I came up with a battle plan! I bought salt and cleared the remaining gasps of snow the night before. This morning I woke up at the crack of dawn just to make sure I could salt my sidewalks. After 10 hours in the office, I managed to get home. I thought about climbing straight up to sink into a chair, my window of time had past, I would have to fight another day, but no. I kicked the sidewalk first. Gasp. It was slushy... it would come up. A quick run to my 24 dollar state of the art ice chipper and shovel. With a little effort it came up. I could see my sidewalk again. Tear. I rushed to my stairs leading down the hill. They were already clear thanks to sun and salt. Down to the boulevard sidewalk, a lovely wide expanse of sidewalk with great trees planted next to it. Lovely in every other season, but winter when it becomes a sidewalk that is too wide and a pain in the neck because it is close to the road and the plows just throw snow back into your cleared area. It too had some patches of actual concrete. With a little love the area became bigger and bigger. Now I'm not saying that my entire sidewalk is clear, no. The Christmas ice still lingers in some areas but with salt still left in the bag and warm weather through the weekend all I have to say is I might still win the war! (Congrats if you made it down to this part, reading this must have been a drag for you, but clearing my sidewalk and writing this story has given me so much stratification it scares me.)