My Scene

2008 literally closed with a bang. And I do mean literally. A man was shot and killed just up the street from my house. That's pretty much all I know about it, but... yeesh.

I've mentioned before that we've gotten a lot of snow. In fact, I think we had a record snowfall for the month of December, but I haven't heard the official total yet. It was just shy of 90cm, which is about 3 feet of snow. Ugh. This much snow also meant the first White Christmas for my daughter. She's 8, so you know why I'm not big on the white stuff --not used to it.

Truth be told, I've probably spent a good portion of my 2-week "vacation" shovelling snow. For the most part, it was fine, but the latest dumps of snow have been wetter, denser snow. Wet snow means hard labor, as a good 5 inches of snow on the shovel can quickly weigh 20+ pounds! (or at least feel like it) The arms and shoulders burn after shovelling the driveway we have here.

Burning's good, though, it means I'm getting exercise, which has been sorely lacking over the holidays. I haven't hit the gym since December 18, so I'll take what I can get. And let's face it: Lots of snow means hiding in the house, not wanting to do much of anything.

I think I've ventured "out" (going further than my in-laws' house 5 blocks away) twice during my time off. I went shopping on the 27th of December and to my sister's on the 29th. Otherwise, I've stayed rooted in the house. My shopping day was for bargains and there were definite bargains to be had! After we'd bought a Wii for Christmas, I let the kids pick up a game for the system. They found one to agree on and it was a $10 purchase (it was $60 last year). At the same time, I picked up 2 games I wanted for under $10 each and then made the "big" purchase of a new DVD player. Our old one is 7 years old(!!) now and was a cheap model back then. It has trouble with some discs these days and trying to write out instructions to my parents on how to use the PlayStation2 as a DVD player took a long, long time. I bought a Sony DVD player for $50, which I think is a good deal.

I have a single weekend left before I head back to work on Monday. Right now I'm not sure how enthusiastic my walk to work will be Monday morning.... I'm tired.