Well if you don't know where Prince Edward Island is, right about now it's likely unfindable! We have had more snow and storms in the last 5 weeks than I think anyone's nerves can handle. Mother Nature is clearly in a very very bad mood or she needs to go to detox!
If you look closely, you'll see the roof of our house which admittedly is a bungalow but it is up on a hill beyond that snowbank from the road!
My hubby has now been away at work for 70 sleeps... Thank God there are only 5 more to go before he's home for a couple of months... which has left the girls and I home to fend for yourselves for the winter. Usually this brings some unpleasant storms and 'hairy' moments in a winter here but not the end of the world. This last month and a bit however has been a bit nutty. Getting close to the 500cm mark of snowfall for a winter season and breaking records. I'm not sure what the prize will be for this feat? Bragging rights? I don't think it's worth bragging about. Sadly the majority of that snow fall has all happened in the last 4/5 weeks. As I look out the window to the second storm this week I wonder if spring will ever come. I figure if I make it through this winter without booking a bed in the rubber room hotel I'll be doing alright!
Everyone is definitely fed up with white stuff, there's so much of it that there's no place left to put it. I've never seen anything like it. Convoys of plows 3 machines deep trying to make one pass at clearing roads, snow up to people's roof's and banks like mountains consume the island. It's times like these where I wish I were a 'able bodied' person. Shovelling is not something that is within my current ability. Tasks that require arm strength in particular are very difficult for me and with stiffness being the biggest complain in my life with PD this winter has been a challenge, in times scary in fact. When the "blizzard" hit (yes I said blizzard) a month ago my front veranda was overflowing with snow. Too much for a shovel, well too much for this body to try and shovel. The back door broke and wouldn't open & I feared opening the car garage door incase it wouldn't close again. So I frantically did my best to shovel a path from my patio to the furnace vent (which so far most storms has required shovelling every couple of hours if not more in order to keep the house heated). The feeling of being trapped in your own house is very unpleasant and scary to anyone I think. The feeling of being trapped home alone with two small kids and my broken PD body running out of steam for shovelling was terrifying. Thoughts of what if there was a fire, what if I just can't shovel that path anymore, what if's galore went through my head. Aaron would facetime the kids and you could see the stress and worry on his face wishing he was home to help. I did my best to reassure him that we'd survive! ;-)
This was after the blizzard, about a month ago... I shovelled a 'tunnel' through to the front door. The kids thought it was fun and I realized after getting through to the other side you'd need snowshoes to get any farther! I've lost count on how many storms we've had since then! There's much more snow there now after a few more storms.
So as the island is now essentially 'closed' yet again I'm now down to one exit of the house and that's the big car garage door. The back door is broken again and won't open, the patio door now has snow up to my waist and the front door well, the snow is almost to the roof there. Thankfully we have many windows we could crawl out of in an emergency, but it's still not a fun feeling. You know there's too much snow when your 6 year old looks out the window and says "Seriously? It's snowing again!!! I think we have enough snow already!" Ha! Ha!
After this week's storm (and hopefully the last of the season) this is me on a snowdrift in front of my house... and yes, that's the roof my head is higher than and I wasn't even at the highest part!
I try and be a positive glass is half full kinda person. Some days this happy go lucky attitude is a bit harder than others. Today would be one of those days as I woke stiffer than ever. My morning levodopa didn't seem to want to 'kick in' like it normally does. Everything is so stiff it hurts, not sure if it's the shovelling, the not so great sleeps I've been having this week, a flare up or just a bad PD day in general. I missed my appointment with my movement disorder neurologist this week because of the weather and now have to wait a month before I see him again which is just another frustration. But I shall dust myself off of the snow and laugh instead. Really at this point you just have to laugh at how ridiculous all this heavy white stuff is. But one things for sure I have no interest whatsoever in shovelling any more paths. So instead I will make some coffee, most likely spike it with a little Baileys, find some more activities to keep the cabin fevered kids occupied and think sunny, hot, beach like thoughts! Then I may get online and start shopping for an 'I love me Jacket' with some bling on it. At least that way I would have it on hand incase any further storms hit our little island which is now a snow blob in the ocean from the air!
