I haven't taken any pictures this week, and we are in pure survival mode. This post is my personal vent sesh, so I'd probably skip this one if I were you haha.
Jared's been in Denver all week for an away rotation, just in time for the 3rd biggest snowstorm in Wyoming history to slam us here. It snowed all day and night and day and night all weekend long without stopping once. Big, heavy, thick March snow, all the way up past my waist in many snow-drift spots of our North-facing driveway. We don't have a snowblower and it's just me and my toddler, who is VERY three and would prefer that I do nothing productive ever, including shoveling. But the shoveling absolutely has to be done, over and over again, lest it reach the height of halfway up our garage like it did for our neighbor who's out of town this weekend. I wish I was out of town this weekend. Definitely regretting not spending this rotation in Utah, but it's too late for that now. The reason we stayed is we're closer to Denver here and hoped we'd be able to see Jared on the weekends. Hasn't panned out so far, but maybe next weekend.
Anyway, so I spent every second of free time this weekend shoveling. My whole body is so sore, and I'm ravenously hungry all the time. I try to take Jack out with me to shovel, but he has a time limit of maybe 20 minutes playing out there before he wants me to go inside with him, and 20 minutes isn't long enough to shovel snow this heavy and high. So I've ended up doing a good bit of shoveling before Jack wakes up or during his nap. And then he doesn't go to sleep until like 9:00 at night because daylight savings. I am struggggling. Solo parenting and solo nonstop record-snow shoveling might actually be the death of me. I've done nothing but diffuse toddler tantrums, shovel my brains out, and stress for days. I'm exhausted. It doesn't help that Savvy can't figure out how/where to go to the bathroom since the snow is taller than she is. She woke me up probably a dozen times last night scratching to go outside and try to figure out how to do her business. Finally at 4:00 a.m. I just let her out front to run rampant in the streets and hopefully find a suitable spot. Took her 15 minutes but seemed to do the trick. I shoveled a pathway to a patch of grass for her in the backyard today. Glamorous.
Looks like it's gonna be just me and my trusty ol' shovel tomorrow in the middle of another snowstorm. And then probably more shoveling this next weekend too if the forecast is correct. Someone ship me off to Grenada, please and thank you. I've never been so anxious for the arrival of spring in my entire life. Pray for us! We all need it! Jack misses Jared so much, and of course Jared misses us too and is living in a hotel room. Not our finest month, but we've done tougher for longer. We can do hard things. Probably. Maybe. When it rains it pours. Or in our case, when it snows it record blizzards.
To end on a more positive note, 3 things I am grateful for: that having to shovel means we have a warm home with our own driveway, that I have a tv babysitter, and that this is Jared's last away rotation EVER!
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post edit: It it now the next day, and while it did snow all last night and this morning, it really hasn't been too bad! The snow was much lighter than the last one. Sooo much easier to shovel. And the temperatures are going to be warm all week so with any luck the melting will begin soon. There's light at the end of the tunnel.