Tuesday night, I was awake feeding the baby around 2:30am and happened to check my phone. There was a missed call and voicemail from our across-the-street neighbor as well as a text message from her letting me know my garage door was open. I jumped out of bed and shut it immediately, but I couldn't shake the feeling that a stranger was in my house. Thinking back, Tory slipped on a patch of ice in the garage after we came home from preschool and I must have been pre-occupied enough unloading the kids that I never shut the garage door. Ugh. I hate when things like that happen. As startled as I was in the middle of the night, I'm very thankful for my neighbor who thought to alert me. Of course nothing bad happened, but it could have so it's nice to have people looking out.
Then, Mother Nature dumped 10 inches of snow on the Twin Cities Thursday after a warm-up in temperatures earlier in the week. That basically caused the perfect storm of ice and snow on the roads. I wasn't too stressed about the weather because we didn't have anywhere we had to be this week. There is Tory's activities, of course, but worse case scenario we'd skip them and stay home if the weather was too terrible to be outdoors.
Again, my same sweet neighbor sent me a text message Thursday afternoon and asked if there were any groceries or errands she could run for me before we were all snowed inside on Thursday night. I had plenty of groceries in the house, but it was so nice of her to offer. I mentioned Andi was working, so she also volunteered to have her husband snowplow our drive-way. We hire a service to shovel for us, so I politely declined her offer.
Of course, this happens: our always-prompt snowplow driver never showed up on Friday. My car was snowed into the garage, so even if I had somewhere to be I wouldn't have been able to leave the house. I do have snow tires on my SUV so I guess I could've attempted to make it out of the drive-way, but since Andi's working I would have been screwed if I got stuck. Also, the city snowplow trucks created a huge snow ridge at the end of our drive-way. Digging my buried trash cans out and lugging them back up to the house was trouble enough.
Finally last night, Andi forwarded an email from our hired plow driver saying his truck broke down and he didn't know when he'd be able to make it over to our house. Obviously shoveling the drive-way myself was out of the question since a) it was 10 inches of wet, heavy snow and b) I have two little kids who I can't leave in the house alone. Andi offered to source another plow driver, but I know he's busy running a giant event right now. He probably has fifty-million other fires he's putting out (not to mention the huge job of plowing and trucking all of that snow from the event site). I told Andi there was no rush. Tory and I have been keeping busy baking in the kitchen and making boatloads of crafts. My house is a mess, but we're surviving the down-time. It is a bit of a debilitating feeling not being able to leave the house, though.
Anyway, I looked outside this morning and saw our neighbor snow-blowing our drive-way clear. I couldn't believe it! The neighbor said she hoped I didn't mind her helping me out; was there anything she could run to the grocery store and pick up for me?
Seriously. I'm so humbled by my neighborhood's generosity this morning. I would've been fine without intervention, but it's so comforting having good neighbors watching out for us. I think Tory and I will bake up some more treats this afternoon to thank them for the efforts.
It's so nice when neighbors pitch in. Every big snowfall we've had this year, all the guys in the neighborhood are out shoveling all the driveways until they are all clear - makes me so happy to live in the "Minnesota Nice" conditions that we live in!! I wish we could've gotten together today - I'm going stir crazy cooped up in the house all day!!!
ReplyDeleteWhat great neighbors!! : ) Zach and I were just talking today that we are in no hurry to purchase a different house because of our great neighborhood!! Neighbors make a HUGE difference and it sounds like you guys kit the jackpot!
ReplyDeleteOh and I totally let Lauren sleep with me when Zach is gone. She knows when he is home she sleeps in her own bed! It is funny she almost begs him to be gone now.
I agree totally, having good neighbors and good friends make life a lot less stressful. Also you and your sister and brother always slept with me when your dad was working out of town, you kids were always so excited when I would tell you he was going to be working out of town because that meant breakfast for supper, which we could have if he was out of town. I remember I was always thankful for our kingsize bed, because all 3 of you kids would be slipping with me every night while your dad was out of town. It will be ok...you do what works for you.
ReplyDeleteLove it! I'm so glad you have such great neighbors who help out when Andi is gone (and even when he's not). So nice!
ReplyDeleteLove that you have such great neighbors! hoping we get the same when we move.
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