Winter Has Arrived

...and with it about a foot of snow, my suffering from a cold, and a snowblower broken right out of the box. It's a little bit of a rough start to the winter months, but I'm sure it can only get better from here.

I was actually pretty stoked for the first snow. It's one of the few reasons I love Minnesota. I hate the cold, but when there's some snow to go with it, then it doesn't seem so bad. Really, there's no point to the cold if you aren't going to have something unique accompany it. So as the snow fell over the weekend, my dad and me unboxed my brand new Craftsman snowblower. Side note, who would ever have guessed how freakin' expensive these babies are? I sure had no idea.

The unboxing went well and we only had to put a couple of things on since it was nearly assembled right out of the packaging. As we pulled the boxing away, there was oddly a wire hanging from throttle lever on the handlebar. It was just dangling there, not attached to anything. As my dad examined it closer, since I don't really know jack about snowblowers, he saw that it was broken off and would need to be replaced. Before I could even use it, the bad boy was broken. How sad.

The snow came, fell, and made everything quite beautiful. With the falling snow came my falling further into a cold I had contracted last week. There was no way I could get out and shovel snow between coughing fits, sniffling, and trying to not take a power drill to my temple to relieve my headache. Being the wonderful people they are, my mom, dad, and housemate Caleb went out and shoveled the driveway. It was quite the task.

Of course, Mother Nature didn't want to wait until I got my snowblower fixed until she dumped another load on us yesterday. As it stands, we have a small path that my other housemate, Jared, shoveled for the time being. Sears is going to be coming out to fix the snowblower tomorrow so hopefully I can put it to its first use later in the evening.

I'm also hoping my cold subsides by then as I'm still battling it, winning slowly but surely. Every year, like clockwork, once winter arrives I end up with a knock-down, drag-out battle with the latest and greatest cold germs that have grown over the last year. I always win, but some years are harder than others and this year was a tough one.

And with that... I guess I'm back. I don't know how often I'll feel like writing as priorities, people, and pressures have all changed a fair amount this last month or two, but I'll give it the ol' college try. It's the best I can offer.