Harumph

It was a rotten day at school. One of those days that leaves me staring out the window as I silently count how many hours until I can leave to go home. Today had the added benefit of snow falling which was nice, until it turned to freezing rain and sleet which just darkened my already ugly mood. Someone announced that there were only 9 more days until winter break, and I wasn't sure if I should be happy about that or not, which didn't help matters either. On top of that the kids were behaving awful, and due to the weather they were stuck inside all day long. By the time I walked out the door and started down the sidewalk for home I felt as miserable as the day had been.

I got home to discover that the road crews had been by and widened the roads today by pushing more snow off to the side of the road. This resulted in huge snowbanks piled up in the spaces at the end of both my driveway and the walk that we had shoveled out on Saturday. On Saturday after it had snowed we were dealing with several feet of fluffy, light snow. Today, after a day of freezing rain and warmer temperatures, it was a wet and heavy mess. I looked at it, determined that there was no way the van was going to be able to make it into the driveway and walked into the house.

I put my school things away, had a snack, and that ugly voice in my head, the one that can't seem to shut up these past few days, told me I should just leave it there. Why should I do anything nice for him, when he can't even ask what's bothering me? Why should I care if he is going to get home and it's going to be almost dark and then he's going to have to spend several hours out shoveling? Then that other voice, the one that is much nicer, reminded me that he would do it for me. That if our roles were reversed, and I was out with the car and he had gotten home first, he wouldn't even consider NOT shoveling out the snow.

So I finished my snack and headed out and spent an hour and a half shoveling the nastiest, heaviest snow out of the the end of the driveway and walk. Whoever said that exercise created endorphins that make you feel better is a dirty rotten liar. I did not feel any better when I was done. I was still in a rotten mood and now my shoulder, which has hurt since school started was killing me and my elbow, which hasn't hurt since school started was hurting again. This all just made me feel more crabby and I was standing in the kitchen blowing my nose after just finishing when The Boy™ walked in the door. He was all chipper and made some announcement about how I was a super star for having shoveled, which just pissed me off more, because I hadn't wanted to do it in the first place.Here we are, 3 hours later, and he still hasn't said much more than that, other than to tell me about some stuff from work. I can't get that voice in my head to stop yelling out: you should've just left the snow there!