Ranting about snow, feel free to skip...

Living on an island in the north Atlantic (think Titanic) has allowed me the pleasure of dealing with the mess of quite a few snowstorms. Our most recent one was yesterday and into last night. There was probably only about 15-20 centimeters of snow but the winds reached 100km/hr, leaving many driveways clear of snow while their neighbors had to dig out for hours. This is the fun of winter around here.

As for me, I have a new neighbor in the basement. Neighbor Man seems to think that the driveway is his and that he can park nearly anywhere that he desires. Because of my lovely car situation, there is little I can do to persuade him otherwise.

For over a month I have been clearing both sides of the driveway so that whoever moved in wouldn't have to deal with a mountain of frozen, icy snow. This has been a challenge, let me tell you. Now though that this man has moved in, I seem to have to be paying for it. There was no clear divide as to where he could park because the whole driveway was nice and neat for him. Straight down the middle seems to be his preference.

Yesterday I noticed that he did not have a shovel and so I felt bad for him. That was until I looked out to see that he had borrowed a neighbor's shovel and was moving all of the snow from around his car to the area at the bottom of my steps. We have a walled driveway and so snow needs to be lifted and thrown. This must be too much trouble for him, though I did it all for a month.

Now somehow this morning the end of the driveway (a wall, thanks to the plow) was cleared just enough for his car to squeeze through. Guess where he put the snow? Yup, on top of the rest of the damn wall of snow. Not only does he think he can park anywhere he wants, move the snow so that we cant even go down our front steps, and somehow get through the winter by borrowing everyone else's shovels, he also thinks it ok to do the bare minimum even for himself. One of the biggest things to remember in this area is that there will be more snow. If you don't move your snow far enough from the edges of your driveway, you will end up with huge mountains of it that get in the way later on. We have up to two more months of snow and yet Neighbor Man is too lazy or whatever to properly clear the driveway. Actually no, not 'the driveway' but his HALF of the driveway. Its a tight squeeze as it is but if he lets a foot or two of snow to build up beside his car, there is no way Ill ever fit a car into my spot.

I really don't mind living in this climate. I like to shovel snow! Its a great workout and it allows me some precious thinking time while in the quiet beauty of the outdoors. Seriously, I love it. But I have like zero time for it. The logistics of getting outside to do anything is just crazy when it comes to four young kids. So guh! Im frustrated! I want to be able to just go out and shovel my half of my driveway, making it all nice and clean and then if I feel like it give the neighbor a hand. There is really no reason why I should be forced to do twice the work because he cant be bothered to put in a little extra effort.

/rant