and on a Monday of course - cuz that's the way Murphy's Law works in my world. Crap happens on garbage day.
Now I know this whole 'school's closed because of freezing rain' happens to a lot of people quite often but here in our part of Manitoba where the roads are relatively flat - it just isn't that common. The occasional 'snow-day' causes closures and more often we have a 'wind-chill' days but even those are rare. That magic 'wind-chill' number seems to have quite a variable and most of the time we miss it by a degree and really the wind-chill doesn't make you housebound, just cautious. You can still get to the store or appointments or to work - you just have to bundle up. Ice - totally not something we are that familiar with so it's been a wild ride baby.
So Monday the kids stayed home and stupidly we took the trucks out and made our way to Winnipeg Beach and stupidly spent nerve-wracking hours doing our job. At one point early in the day we really thought of calling the whole thing off but a) we were already there and b) things weren't going to get any better over the next few days and more likely would get worse, so we sucked it up and finished the day And we got it done I'm proud to say. And we didn't damage anyone (like me...I was so scared I'd fall - again - and hurt my wrists - again) or put any trucks in the ditch (like 'the other guys' did....which made us laugh in a cosmic, karma is a bitch kind of way) and we all made it safely back to the yard in pretty decent time too. For the record 3-ton trucks don't like to only go 20km/h on ice and the back end kept trying to get ahead of the front end and fishtailing that much truck sure ain't fun but I'm so proud of Shelley for keeping things together and getting us there and back safely. That girl is amazing!
And now that we've been there/done that, once is enough and we now have a new policy in place " Freezing Rain=Not leaving the Yard". We safely made it home from work without incident once but are not willing to temp fate a second time.
Watching the news Monday night also brought about a 'what were we thinking' moment when they showed that all garbage service in the city was suspended and if your pick up day was yesterday then you had to wait till next week. Geesh - why didn't we think of that. Al says when he talked to the foreman in the beach Monday morning he seemed surprised to see us there at all so maybe we could have just not gone....but being a contractor you just don't know where you stand in making decissions like that. 7 more weeks.
It's now Tuesday and again the schools are closed due to icy highway/road conditions. Wondering how long this will last. I don't see that ice disappearing by tomorrow morning. This could get old - fast. Oh wait. It already has. Not that I mind having the kids home in theory but they are getting sick of spending so much time with eachother and the nattering and bickering is getting to me. Aarica's routine has been messed with and she's obsessing about everything and Emily's sulking cuz...well....school is where Emily likes to be and she had things to do and people to see. The boys - well - they coudn't care less. Ty's in his glory watching all the shows on the History Channel that he never gets to see and Owen's never going to want to go back to school at this rate since he's on his 2nd week home (spent last week home sick). Al took off to town (slowly) this morning for a dentist appointment and to get us some much needed milk and bread - oh and cream for my coffee and smokes. The last thing any of these people want is to be locked in a house for a couple days with me out of smokes. Nobody'd make it out alive.
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