The snow...I should be expecting this by now

That sort of comment, where people say 'It isn't like this is the first winter ever/Snow is not a surprise/etc.' is the sort of comment I think about when people start to complain about the cold and snow near where I live, in November.  But by February I am making the same comments.  It is cold.  And snowy.  For heaven's sake another pile of snow?!  Another storm!??  We just had a huge storm!  Grouch grouch grouch.

The parsonage has a flight of stairs down from a small front deck and the bottom two stairs are completely covered by snow.  That means that the cleared snow path leading from my stairs to the car is actually about a foot and a half above ground level.  That's the cleared path.  The piles of snow are up to my shoulders on the sides of the paths.  My husband managed to get stuck backing out of the driveway today.  It's just so much.  So much snow. 

Mostly I'm grouchy because we're stuck inside so much of the time.  The children are small, and they get cold, and they are bored outside.  There are no bikes or sprinklers or sand pits in the winter.  There is just snow.  The cat is not outside to play with them (that old cat knows better and is spending the winter with his tail over his nose curled up in a closet thankyouverymuch) and there are no interesting things happening.  For whatever reason my bird feeders do not seem to be garnering much interest this year, and the road in front of the house is often used by fast moving snowmobiles racing towards the lake or away to the trails.  If I go outside with them and shovel or something, they will stay with me, but, sigh, I don't want to.  I don't have a lot of interest in spending an hour fighting back the ice and snow and cold in order to...deal with the same again tomorrow?

We were supposed to head in to the city today, a 45 minute drive on the highway each way.  The highway was clear, but we heard that the city plows were not doing a great job in town, so we cancelled our drive seeing as the snow was still coming down, and fast.  Not that we had important business.  But still, to pick up some fruit, to wander into a few stores.  To get the cat some dry food he will willingly eat instead of the stuff I bought last time, which he detests.  It would be nice to participate, just a little, in society today.

Goodness you know the introvert is housebound when she says something like that.