Share What You Have

"Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God." -Hebrews 13:16

As I have already expressed on previous posts, this winter has been brutal! We've gotten more snow—about 90"—in less time than the city can handle. Many of these storms have happened during the weekdays which is a true annoyance for my husband, myself and every essential employee I know. 

To be honest, in the past few weeks I haven't been too fond of being "essential" to anything or anyone. I just want to stay home and sleep and go shovel after the storm has passed, but instead have to go out several times a night and/or early morning, to keep up with the enormous amounts of snow so that we can drive off in the morning to serve our "essential" duties *sigh*.

Throughout the years I have seen several of my neighbors, who are also essential employees, also shoveling in the early wee morning hours. We greet each other as we clean our cars and shovel ourselves out to get to work. Some have snowblowers, but no one ever offers to help anybody. Here in my neighborhood, you're on your own! Shoveling was painful and exhausting, and would sometimes take hours. Sometimes, if we got a ridiculous amount of snow, my husband and I would help our elderly neighbor across the street, because she was, you guessed it...an essential employee...who also needed to get to work. We just thought - what the heck we're already out here, our backs half broken and frozen and dead tired, might as well help shovel her out. It won't kill us anymore than we already are, right? So we did. 

Last year, after several of those weekday storms, my husband and I decided that we had had enough! We went to Sears and painfully shelled out $550- plus for a snow blower. I rejoiced on the way home; finally no more waking up at 5am to shovel. Thank You, Lord! 

At this point I was so sick of shoveling that I made a promised to myself; I wouldn't be the only one to rip the snow blower's benefit, I would help anyone who needed help.

This year, due to the ridiculous amounts of snow that we've gotten, I've been able to live up to that promise. Now we're not helping our neighbor shovel her driveway, now we "snow blow" (yes, I totally made that word up lol) her out. And we've done so every single storm since it started snowing. She doesn't even have to ask. We just go and do it.

Here's a picture of my firstborn, Jovan,  clearing her driveway and using the snowblower for the first time.

This teen has a heart of gold and always helps people with a smile :).

Our neighbor is a really sweet lady, she always comes out to say "thank you" and that day she even gave my son $20.00 for helping her.   

I always tell her it's not a big deal and that we're happy to help and she always gives me a big hug. Today, I was sitting in my bedroom browsing the Internet, when my daughter comes up telling me the "lady across the street was at the door with food". 

I go to the door and there she is with a badge of freshly made chocolate chip cookies, chocolates and a "Thank You" card. 

Those cookies were oh-so-yummy!

When I opened the card, I found an Olive Garden gift card.

I felt a little bashful when she presented me with this. I just never expect anything back when I do something for someone, so this was a total surprise! 

She wrote in the card that she was "blessed to have such wonderful neighbors", but today, the one who feels blessed of having such thankful neighbors is me!

~ Yamilka ~

Are You Sure?

That's the question my husband asked me while I broke the news that the kids had the rest of the week off due to Winter Vacation.

Yes, unfortunately I am sure, hunny. I am.

To say that this winter has been tough is a huge understatement. In fact, I've already lost count of how many inches of snow we've gotten and how many are scheduled (yes, scheduled) to come. Actually, I don't want to know! Because due to all the white, fluffy stuff in the last three weeks, my kiddos have missed way too many school days—yes, I've lost count of that too!

No school and too much snow makes for  very bored kids, which equals crabby and overtired parents, who have been out in the cold more than they wish to remove all the white stuff. We all just need a vacation...at a tropical island somewhere! 

I'm not the winter type person. I hate the cold, but I especially despise the snow. I usually get the winter blues, along with some blotched skin, pretty early on, but this year I thought it would be different. In fact, I thought I was out of the water—um, snow—and that this was a pretty good winter for me. Until that monster of a storm decided to show up! 

We're literally buried in the white stuff. I mean, just this morning while getting some coffee, I saw this blue and black fluffy ball moving just above a snow pile that used to be a sidewalk. I thought I was seeing things until I realized that it was a person walking their dog, on one of the few cleaned city sidewalks! Because snow piles are so high, it's virtually impossible to see people walking, hence the fluffy ball from the top of a hat "walking" above the snow lol. It's awful, but I did get a good laugh!

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, so I've included this pictures to speak for themselves...

Always ready by the door, so we can shovel ourselves out to the car.

Our tree is covered up to the top of the trunk! 

Our sidewalk.

Our mailbox, which is barely visible. Dear mailman; I promise you we're doing our best :(.

I've lost count of how many times I've been out in the bitter cold cleaning this driveway. It's getting narrower by the storm!

So far Winter Vacation is living up to it's name, but really Mother Nature, our city cannot take anymore snow. Now, if you could just bring back Spring! Please and thank you.

~Yamilka