Well, the phone started ringing at 4am!  I didn’t get to stop plowing or sanding until about 6pm, which is when I went home and had Christmas with my family.  So it was a busy one, I hope that everyone pays their bill when they get it!

I’m glad I’m already all stocked up!  I hear there is a run on generators, which is not a big surprise; that happens quite frequently.  I’m sure glad I already have mine, all set up and ready to go at a moment’s notice! 

To live in this area, you need a four wheel-drive vehicle (preferably with studded snow tires) a generator, boots and a good chain saw!  I put my snow tires on my truck two weeks ago, to beat the crazy rush of people who wait until snow is actually in the forecast to do it. 

I expect we will have a major power outage and treacherous traveling by tomorrow! Next thing you know, my customers will be calling me at all hours begging for help with plowing and sanding their driveways.

The securitychoice installers came over today to install a new home security system in our home. I was surprised how quickly everything got done. I took the afternoon off of work so that I could let them in, but they were literally done within the hour. Because I already had the afternoon off, I decided to just stay at home and take the day for myself. I went to the grocery store early for the week and started to cook a great dinner. I got to watch some talk shows that I never get to see because I am a work and loved every minute of it. I also got all of my laundry done and bills paid. It is amazing what you can get accomplished when you leave work early. My kids were shocked that we didn’t have to run to the store and that great dinner was already made when I picked them up from school. I think that I may consider working part-time! I really got so much done in those short four hours that I lose at work everyday!

I got an extremely large amount of tax money back this year because one of the things that I did last year was have the company that I work for take extra money out (I planned on this.)  OK.  Back to my plan.  I’m having a new driveway put in, hot top.  Two layers, ten feet wide, nice and smooth and a drainage ditch to the side. 

My driveway slopes downhill and every year one area of it always washes out no matter what I do.  Well, next year, when it rains hard, I’ll just laugh as the water runs down the side of the driveway in the ditch and into the big pile of crushed rock at the bottom that I put off to the side. 

This will be the end of me having to fix the driveway every year!  It think it will also be a lot easier to maintain.

It’s going to be a busy week ahead of me, getting my fall contracts in order – a lot of customers are going to be unhappy with price increases due to fuel increases, but there’s nothing I can do about that.  When your job is driving around going from place to place to plow and sand, a big part of the cost of doing business is the price of gasoline, and the cost has to be passed on to the customer.  I’m not a big enough operation to be able to absorb that cost, I barely make enough money to pay the bills and make payroll!  I hope the price of gasoline goes down dramatically and stays down!

I think that a rain gutter chain is a nice looking alternative to the standard downspouts that so many people have on their houses. And I think that in addition to looking nice, they are a practical alternative because they won’t be damaged easily. I especially liked the decorative catch basins at the bottom of the chains. They certainly looked more inviting than downspouts!

Don’t ask me why, but I woke up very early this morning. Rather than lay there half awake, I decided to get on up and start my day. So I used up all that early morning energy doing all the Saturday morning chores, and knocked them out in record time. I believe I deserve a little nap this afternoon!