It's Andy Fish!

This post is mostly for me, I sometimes scroll back for reminders so sometime around November of 2026 I’ll pull this one up to see how in the world I survived this past horrible Winter in case we’re due for another one in ’26/’27.

1- Our dear neighbor who used to snowblow are driveway and front sidewalk has retired from that duty– his snowblowing days are apparently over. So for the second year in a row we’ve had to do it (not complaining but we got spoiled). I broke the shoveling down to 3 steps; the first walkway and sidewalk, the second walkway and deck and the driveway. Sometimes I did them in that order sometimes I reversed it. Son’s #1 and #2 came over several times without my asking and helped– that was a huge benefit. I worked at a leisurely pace, and I skipped the gym on days I spent 3-4 hours shoveling.

2- For the most part the snow was light and fluffy– but sometimes that’s hard because it blows back at you while you’re trying to make a pile. It also gets to the point where there is just no place to put it. Keep a stiff upper lip and do your best. Wearing a hood for the first time ever made a huge difference on the sub zero snowing days– ditto the heavy duty shoveling gloves.

3- We made Beef Stew in the slow cooker. Nice comforting meal after a long day of being trapped inside.

4- We got out and did stuff anyway, took walks, went downtown for Valentines Day, went to the Boynton for their Monday night wing special.

5- Once you get over the point where the day is shrinking and the sun starts staying out to 5 or 530 there’s a real change to your own winter shocked attitude, that sunlight makes a difference. I don’t need it to be daylight until 9pm, but 7-730 is perfect.

6- We watched some shows, we got into the Football playoffs, we listened to a lot of music and we studied Japanese in our down time.

7- Everyone is healthy and the family is good– we spent a good amount of time with various folks to break things up.

8- It was strange not having a dog to walk in snow, but I still took some walks.

9- Tried to plan decent meals at least 3x a week. Tried a few different things.

10- Focused on work– we have a lot of it, but we made sure it didn’t envelope us completely.

We got hit with a late February Blizzard but we were in Florida for it. The snow removal plans I had setup while we were away fell through so we were expecting a big problem when we got back, well without asking neighbors cleared us completely out- that’s the kind of neighborhood we have.