The Shovel Technique...or no technique at all

wow...so winter has for sure arrived and I have been working hard to keep up with things...now remember, I grew up in Santa Monica Ca, and although I have been here going on my 3rd winter, i am not totally acclimated to the tricks of the trade yet in terms of really dealing with snow etc...since we have moved into a new place that is a larger house with a back deck (above) and driveway etc...this last storm has kept me busy for about 1.5 hours each morning...shoveling and trying to get the lingo and the correct work flow down...I even went online and googled 'winter snow care for the home' or something like that...some of it was pretty obvious, but one that helped was, shovel the snow to the right of the bottom of the driveway (looking at the street) so that when a plow comes by, they take that and push it down the road...if you had a big pile on the left side, the plow would just push it all back into your clean apron...duh....I also have been working on shoveling technique.  I managed to shovel off the above deck this morning which had about 18-20 inches of snow. I was able to figure out that less is more...so I would walk along the length of the pile and carve off about 4 inches vertical along the run of the deck and then like a plow, walk back and push it off the side...pretty easy and alot less effort than throwing it over the side.  I get this funny feeling that people in the neighborhood are watching me and saying things like "gee, don't he know to not do it that way? " or "Marge, hey Marge....check out the new neighbor...he's at it again..."
Oh the other mystery is this...so you have a really nice garage with a new floor that has been painted and when you pull in after a day of driving etc. and let the car sit overnight, what happens?  ummm...water and mud etc...so now, I have a filthy floor to contend with every time we park in there...so I bought this awesome floor squeegee...and poured a little warm water on the floor and it was pretty clean after about 10 min...but there has to be a better way!  I haven't found that one out yet.  someone let me know if they already had a brilliant epihany on the matter.

so today I am dressing up as Chevy Chase in Fletch during the airport seen when he comes in as a mechanic...anyone seen that one??  pretty simple really...a one piece Dickie and hopefully some sideburns and mustache....sweet...pictures will ensue

so this morning is a good day...the sun is shining a bit and the snow is melting a bit and it is Friday and the weekend promises to be grand and relaxing....


nothing to earth shattering today...just had to share my shovel wisdom, or lack thereof.

love and understanding!!