Hating the Snow

The snow has messed up pretty well everything. Our dinner worked out fairly well, although one set of family friends weren't able to make it through the snow. But it snowed far too much through the mountain passes for me to be able to go to the house. I did phone my neighbours though, and found that everything seems to be in one piece.

Then my Eldest Daughter and son-in-law took the girls and went up north to his folks for a few days. While we were eating Shabbat dinner last night we heard a huge crash. I went upstairs to check and found that the fibreglass and 2x4 cover over the deck had collapsed due to the weight of the snow. It's a huge mess and it bent the metal railing around the deck all out of shape, as well as doing some damage to the wall where it was attached.

As soon as Shabbat was over tonight I called and the kids are coming back home tomorrow, a couple of days early. Hubby shoveled over a foot of really wet snow off the shed that's attached to the house, just behind where the deck is. It has an almost flat roof and we were afraid it might collapse too, especially now that it's getting warmer and has been raining, saturating the snow to the max. In fact, some buildings have collapsed due to the snow so it's a totally valid fear.

Tomorrow we'll try to take apart the ruin of the cover, at least enough that we can get around on the deck and try to dump some of the snow off the deck and bring in a couple of items of furniture that were out there. I guess once the kids get home they'll call their insurance and start a claim. Sigh.

The side streets and lanes are a combination of slush, snow and ice and are practically impassable. Lots of people are getting stuck and some folks are just leaving their cars where they are! How dumb are they? It may not be fun, but if you get totally stuck the answer is to call a tow truck. You don't just leave your car in the lane and wait for it to melt some more!

I'm still thinking about goals for 2009. I've already managed to balance our budget, but I was looking at how long it will take us to eliminate our credit card debt at our current rate. Basically it will take us between 4 and 5 years, assuming that we keep the payments at this level and don't drop them as the minimum payment drops. That's not acceptable. We have to get out of debt faster. I would really like to be out of debt by the end of 2009 but I'm not sure if that's realistic. I won't be getting a raise this year and I actually worked fewer hours this year than last year. I can only hope that I'll be able to work more hours in 2009 so I can earn a little more money that way.