The Snow Shoveler

My contribution to the moving snow around task.

In honor of South Bend's snowfall last night and its feels like -4 degrees weather, I thought I would share a bit about my strong husband's new role, the snow shoveler. 

When we got home from Christmas in sunny San Diego (I wish, we actually experienced probably five of their ten cloudy days a year...but! we weren't there for the weather), we received a warm South Bend welcome home in the form of snow covering our driveway. Thanks, SB. So during the day on New Year's Eve, Chris epitomized our responsible parent lifestyle by purchasing our very first snow shovel rather than a dozen bottles of André. No worries, he sprung for a bottle later that evening, and we welcomed the New Year in $5 style.

Now, my dear husband grew up mostly in the normally sunny city of San Diego and then in the heavy-on-the-rain-light-on-the-snow city of London so snow shoveling wasn't exactly a childhood chore. And in all of his eight years of living in the Midwest, Chris has never been responsible for shoveling that sweet white powder that falls aplenty around here. I doubt that a place exists that can match ND's snow removal on campus. The snowplows buzz about making sure that you don't even have to step on a snowflake as you are walking home from studying in CoMo (read: eating popcorn and reading the same PowerPoint slide twenty times in a row) at 2am with snow falling all around you. Since graduation, Chris has only lived in apartments so he didn't have a driveway to worry about. Bottom line, except for once at my parents' house (impressing the future in-laws tactic??), Chris had never shoveled a driveway until the ripe old age of veinte y seis.

Chris' initially poor shoveling form

When Chris does something, he likes to figure out the absolute best way to get it done. I have seen him go through this process numerous times, but seeing him analyze how to correctly shovel the driveway was, surprisingly, so adorable. I'm easy to please, I guess? Or just incredibly in love and appreciative, take your pick. After two or three passes down the driveway, he informed me that it was best to stay standing up as you pushed the snow so you didn't get too tired before you have to lift the shovel full of snow. Then he was wondering if he should have gotten the deeper shovel rather than the wider shovel because the wider one would clear faster even though the deeper one seemed like it would hold more. Or something like that. When he reached the sidewalks, he looked around at all of the neighbors' sidewalk shoveling so he could note the correct snow shoveling placement (note: throw the snow on the side closest to the street if you would like a manicured look on your snowy lawn). 

Take note, young one, from the shoveling master

After my sister, Ryan and I had walked back from the park on Ryan's birthday, Chris' automatic question was, "Did you like my sidewalk?"

Of course, since I found his dedication to snow shoveling so adorable, I had already snapped a photo:

Just beautiful.