The New Year, So Far

One of the first changes for the new year is that my work hours have been cut. During the holidays I usually work 4 days per week. I was trying to prepare myself for the decrease in income when I usually go back to 3 days per week. Suddenly, I have to re-do my budget again. I'll only be working 2 days per week, at least in January. It could be worse, some are cut to one day some weeks. Even the fulltime people have to give up one day a week. We are just not getting the orders for demos as much. Hopefully, as time goes on, things will pick up. There is one advantage, one less day a week to deal with driving in a snow storm.

Speaking of snowstorms, we had a fun one last Friday. I'd been hoping it would hold off until I got home, but it didn't. It started raining around 6 pm. By the time I got off at 7 pm, it was beginning to snow. When I got to I- 80, the snow flakes were getting big and visability was getting worse every moment. When I first got onto the freeway, there were 4 lanes with totally invisable lines. You headed where you thought you should be, then prayed. Eventually, as I got farther west, the freeway is down to 2 lanes each way, so I just hugged the outside lane, listening for the bump, bump, bump sound that would tell me I was too far to the right. People were being pretty careful, only going around 30 mph. The roads were so slushy, that when anyone passed, they gave you a slush bath. Luckily, I had put new windshield whipers on a couple of weeks ago. Needless to say, I finally arrived home safely.

The next day, it took me 10 or 15 minutes to get my car door unfrozen and opened. The road crews had done thier jobs during the night and the roads were in pretty good shape. It was a fast moving storm, sort of hit and run. Lots better than those storms that hang around for days. I must admit that everything was pretty the next morning when we went out to clear the driveway. The sun was shining and the trees were covered in thick snow. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture. Maybe next storm, it's only January, after all.