Plans change...

I originally had planned to share all the Homemade/Handmade gifts we made or purchased for family this year. However, as our snow storm delayed our holiday, many have not received their gifts yet. Bummer! I don't want to ruin their surprise, so that will have to be a New Year's topic.

Our dig out is nearly complete. We finally received mail today after over a week without. Stephen did walk down to our post office during the storm and request mail but only received a partial day worth - no packages, no cards, no bills (I guess that is okay), just mainly junk. Today we only received one days worth of stuff. I wonder when we will get the back log of Christmas cards, bills, and magazines. I suppose at some point we will finally get the outstanding packages from our family across the country. Not today. We hope to have our second "Christmas" on New Years but who knows if it will all arrive by then.

Amazing how a storm like this is par for the course in most parts of the country. When we lived in Wisconsin I would have driven to work and worked a full day (no leaving early) in these conditions and worse. I would never have abandoned my car due to the conditions. Yes, people here do. We went out yesterday to run some much needed errands (mainly to stock up for the next storms coming this week) and found the roads littered with many abandoned vehicles. It seems those should be picked up soon before the snow plow carries them away. Speaking of snowplows, I doubt any of the local snowplow drivers have ever seen a lot of snow. They just don't know how to clear it properly. We have dug out our driveway countless of times in the past week only to have it piled up (we're talking 3 feet deep and all the way to the street) again by the snowplow (who only can drive 50 mph - in a residential area -with the blade only slightly lowered and move the same pile over and over - no removal here). I guess I should be thankful we have seen him the 4 times we have. Others haven't yet. So yeah for the rain to help that snowplow out so he doesn't have to know how to do his job.

In addition to the mail service and package deliveries we hope to arrive this week, we are hoping for garbage pick up. December is always a high recycling time for us with birthday boxes in addition to Christmas boxes (both the delivery and the toy variety) but when you factor in a week without pick up and some new furniture (big boxes) we are loaded down with recycling. I can only hope the storms coming this week don't make it difficult for pick up. They are needed here at our house. The boxes will be swimming down the hill looking for the collectors if they don't arrive soon.

So as we anxiously await the New Year and all that it has in store for us, we wish you a very prosperous and happy 2009!