UGH!! Why?!

Instead of attempting to get out of this house today & perhaps doing a little thrifting, I now get to stay home and try to shovel out a 4' deep canyon/gap/area around the perimeter of our yard. Why? Well, because the snow has now hardened and my dog just walked right over to the fence and almost jumped over. Okay, it wasn't so much a jump as it was just casually walking over. Thankfully, I saw her & yelled her name and she came running back!!



Stupid snow.

I do not want to have to take the dogs out on a leash for the next week while I wait for this crap to melt far enough down that they can't escape. I'm thinking that's probably my only option at this point though because I just don't see how I'm going to be able to shovel all of that snow. I mean sure, the 40 pound dog can walk across it, but I know as soon as I get out there, I'm gonna sink up to my waist!

Btw, Will and I have sort of narrowed down the list of places we might want to move. Colorado Springs is on the top of the list now. Anyone lived there? Visited there? I drove through on my way back from Wyoming and it was pretty. Oh, and I checked and they have FIVE TARGETS there. Two of them are Super Targets! Yay!! And I googled & saw that there was plenty of thrift stores too!!

Of course, plans could change & we could end up staying in the area if Will is offered another job at the Pentagon after his year-long tour is up. If that happens, we're still moving - back to the bay because if I have to live here with all this crazy traffic, I at least want to be able to go home at the end of the day & have a nice view & a relaxing neighborhood!! Our current house is convenient for shopping but I'll sacrifice that in order to have a view of the Chesapeake Bay & not have to deal with planes, trains and the bus!!

Stir Crazy? Cabin Fever??

Call it what you want but I am definitely experiencing it. OMG! I've been at home since Thursday. Last Thursday. Minus a quick jaunt to the gas station, the tiny grocery store down the street and Burger King. I was home, alone, from Thursday night through midnight Tuesday morning and I was about to go nuts. There's only so much shoveling one person can do before they go insane. There's only so much talking to my dogs that I can do before I start to feel crazy. I mean they're cute but they don't really talk back and the lack of interaction with other humans was getting to be a bit too much.

Will was home less than 3 days and he just left again. I'm so over this job. OVER. IT. There are only 6 people left on his team that can fly these Vice President trips, so every.single.time. they leave, they're all going. He used to have a few more guys on the team but they either got out of the military, got deployed or are on leave. It's ridiculous that they can't have more people on the team because I would be a lot less stressed if he wasn't having to do 15 jobs at work and then come home & deal with phone calls all night, PLUS being gone every single weekend. This is the 5th weekend in a row that he's been gone, not including all of the trips during the week too. It's just taxing and tiring and I need a break from his constant travels! Come on May!!

So, as I'm sure you are all well aware, MD got blasted with another big storm Tuesday night through yesterday. An additional 22 inches fell in that span of time. That's in addition to the 32" we had over the weekend. Our angel-neighbor down the street came through on Monday and cleared a decent path on the driveway with his snowblower so I didn't have to shovel an entire parking space for Will's truck. It wasn't quite wide enough though as I quickly found out at 12:30 at night when Will finally made it home & tried to turn into the driveway and couldn't fit. There I was, out there, shoveling like crazy in the middle of the night. Ugh. I started having severe chest pains and was wheezing and thought I was going to die. Asthma + cold air + rigorous activity = not good! Thankfully, I didn't drop dead from a heart attack & despite still wheezing a few times a day, I'm okay.

Will and I did more shoveling (imagine that!) on Tuesday and we were able to get the rest of the driveway from the back bumper of my car to the street cleared. Finally. Not that I can really go anywhere because all the stores are still closed. I'm so sick of shoveling. I am going to buy a snowblower. Watch...we'll buy one and it won't snow again for 15 years!!

Since Will had to leave today, he wanted to take me for a drive down the road (yeah, yeah...stay off the roads...blah, blah, blah) so we went into our little downtown area & then to Burger King. I hate BK but that was the only place open besides the 7-11. I stopped there too. lol Loaded up on peanut M&Ms, Combos and those little powdered donuts that come in a bag. We depleted our junk food stash over the last few days. Shoveling is hard work & leaves ya starving!

Yesterday, in the middle of the blizzard, Will tried to build me a snowman. I've never really built a snowman because I'm from SC and it doesn't snow there. Well, the snow yesterday was very powdery so my snowman (woman, really) was very small. If Will had been here over the weekend, we could've built a life-size elephant out of snow. That snow was very heavy & wet and perfect for building snow people and/or animals. I wanted a pink snowwoman. She didn't turn out as nicely as I had pictured in my head. And I couldn't find the appropriate things to use to decorate her properly. She looks a little ghetto. Oh well, at least I have a snowwoman sitting on my deck & she has pretty jade green color button eyes. LOL Just pretend she has a nose & a mouth. And that she doesn't look like she's bleeding internally. LOL My not-so-fabulous idea to spray her pink using food coloring made her look kind of bloody. Oops.




Here's some other pictures from yesterday. Behind this pile/shovel is our 4' tall fence. It's pretty much buried at this point. We should see it again sometime around May.



Poor little Scarlett. She wants so badly to go outside but she can't. She's too short. Well, all dogs except Great Danes are too short. She sits here on the window seat every day looking out onto the frozen tundra.



This icicle is gigantic. It's about 4' long now. Drip. Drip. Drip. I wonder if it'll reach the ground before it breaks off.



What is left of our 6' shrubs. They've been reduced to 2' tall piles of frozen sticks. I hated those shrubs anyway so I'm glad to see them go. Now I can finally get that picket fence I've been wanting. lol



Our very snowy roof. Should've bought a snow rake (whatever that is) and cleared the roof off but we're gamblers like that. Figured we'd just wait and see how much weight this 80 year old house can take. So far, so good. No collapses, yet.



Oh and today while we were out being rule-breakers and not staying home, we took a drive through the Wal-Mart parking lot. Not because we wanted to go there but because that's how you get to the Chick-fil-a, which was closed, btw. Wal-mart has only plowed about 1/3 of each aisle. So, these piles are going to get much, much bigger in the next few days.



Here's the main street in our little town. Look! You can see my dirty, streaky windshield! I tore my wiper blade last week but whatev. Clearly, I haven't been out to get a new one yet! Anyhow, the people on this road are still plowed in. I think if I lived on this street, I'd be out there every time the plow came through so I could keep my car semi-clear. Shrug. Guess they had other things to do, you know, like watching Rosanne reruns on TVLand.



Obviously, 7-11 knows what's up. Their parking lot was so clean!! Look at their big ol pile. Almost up to the bottom of the sign!! I bet they've done a ton of business this week.



This is our street. The first time I've seen black top in a week! Finally. Too bad all these people insist on parking in the street. Probably could've been a lot more clear if their cars wouldn't have been in the road. I'm sure it's all refreezing as I speak though. Slushy. Should be fun tomorrow morning!!



I cannot even fathom what another 12" of snow is going to look like. I've read some reports online that say this storm that is coming on Monday could drop another foot of snow. That is going to be insane. I just hope this doesn't melt anytime soon because our basement is going to flood horribly & there is no way I can deal with that all alone!



I am really, really hoping that I can get out of this house tomorrow. I NEED to do some thrifting. Or window shopping. Or something. I just need to get out of this house for a few hours and do something, anything. Well, anything except shoveling.


As I said before, I'm home alone all weekend so you know what that means - time to sit here w/ my junk food & catch up on blogs!! Can't wait to see what you all have been doing. Hopefully you've all been doing lots of thrifting so I'll have some eye candy to hold me over until I can get out of this mess & go do some junking of my own.

*THE BLIZZARD* Part 3

Ugh. Every muscle in my upper body is aching. My arms feel like wet noodles and I can barely even pick up the coffee pot to pour a cup of much needed caffeine. I feel like crap!! It snowed most of the day yesterday and when it finally stopped around 4, I swear I broke out into a chorus of "hallelujah". Of course, that's when the real *fun* began. Not!! I had to do more shoveling, which I might add, is one heck of a workout! Who knew! Obviously not me, because I've never had to shovel 32" of snow before.

My doggies were not happy with their 2' diameter patch of ground I had previously cleared for them so I had to make it bigger. They still weren't happy. Marty kept trying to figure out how to get up & over the 'wall' of snow. Silly dog.

He looked to the right:



He looked to the left:



Finally, he thought he'd try to jump up onto the top of the snow. That didn't work out like he'd planned and he promptly sank into 3' of snow.



Then he looked at me like I was the crazy one. Meh, whatever. I warned him that would happen & he didn't listen.



Meanwhile, Scarlett was back on the deck, surveying the situation. She didn't feel the need to do any belly flops into the snow.



Earlier in the day, I had shoveled a path from my front porch down the walkway and made it within 5' of my car! I felt like I'd really accomplished something. The snow was 28" deep at that point. I started to feel dizzy so I came in to take a break when my fabulous down-the-street neighbor came over with his snowblower! I'm telling ya, if I hadn't been sitting inside in nothing but thermal underwear, I would've ran out & kissed the man! He cut a path from the road, up the sidewalk to my front porch, back down the walkway that I had just shoveled and then out our driveway!! He's my new best friend!! Of course, after the snow stopped, an additional 5" had fallen so I had to shovel again, but still, it wasn't nearly as bad as it would've been had he not come over!!

Here's a good view of how deep the snow is by my front porch. Please ignore all of the crap that's on the porch! lol



And this is what the view is from my driveway into my back yard.



And our 4' tall fence, which has maybe 6" sticking up above the snow!!



This is the only part of my SUV that is still visible. This tiny little patch by the tire!



Well, that's not true. Here you can see about 4" of what used to be my windshield wipers! lol



After I finished shoveling the walk again, I started trying to dig out a space for Will's truck. I shoveled for a good hour and only ended up with a spot big enough to park a golf cart. I ran out of energy and daylight. Look at this great sunset though.



I came inside and collapsed in my chair in my office, read a few blogs, at microwaved food for dinner & was asleep by 9:00 last night.

Now, the sun is up & I get to go outside and start shoveling again. Whee! Will's flight has been delayed until tomorrow so at least I have another whole day to get him a spot cleared out! Did I mention we're supposed to get more snow on Tuesday/Wednesday?? It's pretty to look at but it'd be a lot more fun if Will was here to help me shovel!! And, for the record, if we get orders to anywhere that regularly gets snow like this, the first damn thing we're buying is a snowblower!!!

Christmas, the Blizzard, Etsy, etc

Hey Vintage peeps. How was your Holidays? I'm hoping that Santa left you all a lot of goodies. I had an amazing Christmas. Santa brought me a new camera, which I desperately needed, and now I can get back to listing lots of goodies in my Etsy shop!

And how fabulous was it for us Mid Atlantic people to finally have a white Christmas? I think it was pretty fab! And I've been lucky enough to have 2 White Christmases in a row now. Of course, last year in Jackson Hole, we had way more snow than this year in MD, but I won't complain about that!! I'm just happy that the 27" we received the Saturday prior lasted through the week. I'm not so happy that when the rains came on Saturday, that all of the snow melted and flooded our basement. Again. Oh, and I'm not so happy that the snow collapsed our canopy thing on our deck, but that was kind of our own stupidity for not taking it down before the snow started. When we woke up that morning to see it snowing, this is what greeted us as we looked out our back door onto our deck. Hahahahaha



And here is my cute little Schnoodle, Scarlett, and her Daddy-o:



She was having a blast in the snow. Well, until it got so deep that the only thing above the snow was her snout! Poor dogs were buried in the snow. Marty the Briard simply refused to go outside!

Look at Scarlett trying to walk through the snow. This was around 2:00 that afternoon. I'd say we received another 10 or 12 inches on top of that! Please ignore my voice! I don't think I sound like that in real life.




Here's Marty giving me that "you want me to go where?!?" face. lol He was not pleased when I forced him to go potty!! I'm not sure what his issue was this time because normally he loves the snow!



Here's what our house looked like when we first went outside that morning. So pretty!!



So, now all the snow is melted and Christmas is over. Will left today for a week. He's in the Virgin Islands and I know most people would be so jealous but I couldn't care less. lol I have zero desire to go anywhere hot & sunny. Give me cold & snow any day over sandy, hot, sunny places! I'm going to use this next week to hopefully get back to listing lots of vintage goodies in the shop. Perhaps I'll take a day trip or two to some places in PA or western MD. I may do a little antique shopping at some of the places around here. I might even go snow tubing one day! I'm quite looking forward to the solitude. I'm going to sleep when I'm tired and relax and maybe even eat junk food for breakfast and cereal for dinner!!

And finally, some pictures of the great new-to-me linens I've acquired in the last couple of months. Take a peek at all of this yummy goodness!!







That's just the tip of the iceberg. I have so many others I need to pull out of boxes and get ready to list!! It's kind of like Christmas morning all over again every time I go through the boxes and see all of these great linens!!