Ah. It took us two hours to get our car out this morning, and that was with four of us working on the problem. We'd still be out there if it wasn't for Garry and Amanda, I'm telling you. Garry ran his Jeep up and down our driveway a few times to give us a trail, but the snow was still too deep for our little Toyota. We pretty much had to shovel out the entire driveway, garage to road. You know what? That's a long way.

After we got our car to the patch of clear space by the road (Catherine spent two hours digging out a space yesterday), we went across the street and helped the neighbors there get their car out. It went a little quicker than ours because their Nissan had a slightly higher clearance, and their driveway isn't uphill.

After that, we went to Garett and Diane's to feed their cats, and yes, to shovel their walks. I didn't do what I should have done, which was clear the sidewalk along the entire length of their property. My collar bone is killing me right now, so I'm glad I just did their stairs and a path to the road and called it a day. My sinus infection seems better, my shoulder seems a lot worse. That's about breaking even, I think. Not bad considering all the time I spent in 10 degree weather.

Because of all the snow, it took forever to run four simple errands today: 1) feed the cats; 2) go buy a couple more Christmas presents at the bookstore; 3) buy four ramekins for Christmas dinner; and 4) buy a few groceries for Christmas dinner. We tried to leave our house at 10:00, shoveled snow for two hours instead, and didn't get home until 4:30. And now we must clean.

However, I am absolved from vacuuming due to the egg-sized swell-up on my right shoulder. And I may not scrub the shower, the company won't notice.

Looking forward to opening presents tomorrow, we've got a stack of interesting things from each other, but also from friends and relatives. We've been saving them all up to make a better pile under the ficus tree (except for Catherine's parents' present, which we knew ahead of time would be perishable). We might open the ones from my parents this evening, mostly because the stack is getting embarrassingly large.

Christmas menu is set. That is to wit:

Butternut Squash and Leek Gratins
Carrot Coins w/Maple-Balsamic Browned Butter
Cold Rice Salad
Peppery Baked Onions with Sage and Gruyere
Bread (supplied by others)
Mulled Wine
Dessert (supplied by others)

If you're coming to dinner, bring your slippers because our floors are cold, cold, cold.