What I did on my snowy weekend

I think I’m a little tired of snow. We broke the records for snowfall in Maryland and we’re about to get more. I’m not nearly as tired as poor M, who had to shovel us out. We are so lucky to have friends next door, so M doesn’t have to shovel alone. It’s more like hanging out with his friend instead of being a chore. I like watching them dig and laugh together.

I left work early on Friday afternoon when the snow started picking up. I’m not about to risk anything with this baby. It didn’t really start to stick until after I would have gotten home normally, but whatever. I got all of the weekend chores finished before it was even officially the weekend!! That was awesome.

Anyway, snow, snow everywhere and I was the only one who couldn’t drink!

This is a view of the windows looking onto our deck. The snow was drifted, so it looks a bit worse than it really is... but it's deep! The piles between driveways are over 7' tall!



Our power went out at 3 am on Saturday morning. This means M didn’t sleep at all after that as he went into man mode and needed to protect us. At first, he just laid in bed and complained about being cold and yelled at me for throwing the covers off. He was trying to keep warm by spooning me, which just made me sweat like a pregnant lady. He got out of bed around 7 and somehow he got our neighbor, A, to start a fire in our fireplace. We made a fire back in 2004 and never did it again. We have a small woodpile under the deck with a ton of old wood. It wasn’t ideal, but they did get a small fire started. It didn’t become a FIRE with HEAT until 2 pm. The 4 of us were laying on our couches and covered with blankets not speaking and frowning. Someone’s cell phone rang and we all thought for 2 seconds that the power was coming back on. That was funny. When it did come back on for real (The roar of our old beer fridge let us know), we started cheering.

In the meantime, the men shoveled, the women laid on the couch and my mother in law called over and over again to freak out.

Note to MILs everywhere: If you are freaked out about your DIL’s pregnancy, don’t call her when there is nothing anyone can do. It’s not like my main priority was shoveling the snow. I spent the day wrapped in blankets and keeping my core temperature normal. Sure, my nose and toes were chilly, but my house never fell below 53 degrees! I wouldn’t have had a problem if she hadn’t kept calling us. M actually yelled at her. So when the baby wasn’t moving much on Saturday night, I was extra freaked out.

Sunday was a finally a fun snowed in day. I made 4 (FOUR!) scrapbook pages for the baby book. I was afraid to start, but now I can’t stop! M made chili, I was warm and the neighbors came over for the superbowl (the baby LOVED Carrie Underwood singing. WTF?). I was sad when the front end loader came out around midnight to dig out our road.

So here I am, at work and everyone is talking about the 12-18” we’re supposed to get on Tuesday. Note to the weather: This is MARYLAND! Not the arctic!

On another note: I found out all the details of my short term disability pay from work. And it is CRAPPY. I get 6 weeks past my due date at 70% pay. That sounds good, right? Except that I have to be out of work 29 days before that kicks in. Meaning I will get paid for the 29th day through the 42nd day. That is 13 days (minus weekends). I will get 70% of two weeks of pay and we wanted me to stay home for 12 weeks. Haha! My job is to now sit down and go through the budget and find out how long I can stay home without making a huge dent in our savings. You’d think this would mean we would go into savings mode right now, but we’re trying to get new windows before the baby gets here. I need to make some spreadsheets.