Unavoidable Interruptions

Life has this tendency to throw a lot of random things at us. Some are good, some are bad, and others are obstacles that we need to navigate around or even through. These obstacles or interruptions could be something as simple as a coworker who's loud and likes to talk. Other times there are larger ones like an act of God, such as a giant snow storm.

  As someone who lives in the northeast, winters seem to range from mild to snowbound extremes. This year we've had a couple storms hit that dumped several feet of snow in a very short period of time. There's nothing like having to snow blow and shovel your driveway several times in a day. If you have to commute to work, you're forced to make sure that is taken care of before you need to leave, and then again when you get home from a long day working.

  When snow accumulates to these numbers you need to pay attention to what is building up on your roof. If enough accumulates it can equate to thousands of pounds sitting on your roof. This kind of weight can cause a cave in. Reports of this had started to come in about other homes, and businesses in the area. When you start to see it building up, it's time to make sure it's cleared as much as possible.

  These kind of events can take the wind out of your sails. Leaving you feeling as if the world doesn't want you to move forward. I've felt this myself. Don't let those thoughts take root in your mind. They will only make you feel worse, and in reality it's not true.

  What can be done when something out of your control effects your ability to pull the forward moving levers?

  When the latest storm hit, the first thing I needed to do was let go of the fact that I couldn't do anything about the situation. I can't control the weather, but I can control how I react to it. There was no sense is letting the situation out of my control add stress to my day. Holding on to that would only make me miserable. What I did was find a resolve that the day wasn't going to be what I had planned, and taking care of the snow was the priority.

  Next, I needed to make a plan of action. I made a mental note of the tasks that needed to get done: clear driveway, shovel front steps, pull the car out of the garage in order to get the roof rake, etc. I also made sure to figure out the best order of the actions required of me. I can't the roof rake out without moving my car, but I also can't move my car without clearing the driveway. One more note I made was that with it still snowing out, I needed to make sure I had the time to clear the driveway again later.

  It was now time to take action. I knew what I needed to do, and in what order. I dragged out the snow blower, added any needed fuel, started the machine, and got to work. Normally snow blowing the driveway, and the sidewalk in front of my house isn't too bad. On this day, the storm had started as freezing rain before it turned to snow. This means that I had ice in the mix with the snow and forced a lot of extra work to get through it. My snow blower has the ability to move forward with a throttle to assist with getting the work done. The ice and snow mix caused it to get stuck continuously. I found myself pushing the machine manually through the ice and snow mix just to get it to move through those tough layers.

  Eventually I made it through my driveway, sidewalk, and the path to my front door. I still needed to do any shoveling where the snow blower couldn't get to, like my front steps, and take care of the snow on the roof. Was I exhausted? Yes, but I was also the only one who could do it. Instead of thinking about it, I continued to the next step, pulling the shovel out, and clearing all that I needed to from the front steps and any other small spots.

  The first major step was now complete. Next, I moved my car out of the garage and onto the driveway. I proceeded to grab the roof rake and cleared out what I could reach from the ground. This was only helpful on the main parts of the house. There is an addition to the house that is harder to reach from the ground even with the extremely long pole on the roof rake. The grade of the slope on the addition is smaller than on the main part of the house, causing more snow to build up.

Thankfully the roof to my addition is accessible without a ladder. I can access it via a window from the attic of the main part of the house. My wife who had just finished watching me take care of the driveway decided to help me take care of the snow from the roof on the addition. We grabbed the roof rake, a shovel, and an ice pick.

  My wife and I made our way to the attic with tools in hand. As we approached the window, we could see that even more snow had collected overnight covering a quarter of the window. I proceeded to open the window, then the screen, but as I raised the screen, ice had taken hold causing me to struggle with it. Once I finally got it moving, a giant tear in the screen mesh was created from the snow and ice.

Yep, now I have a repair that I'm going to need to make in the spring…

We cleared the snow around the window, then slowly moved to getting more and more down. My wife and I broke through the layer of ice between the top layer of fresh snow and the snow underneath, pulling it towards us then shoveling it off the roof. We got to a point where no tool will reach any more snow, so I decided to climb completely out the window.

Here I was, a six foot tall guy, climbing out this tiny window. As I started doing this, I hear my wife start yelling at me, "What are you doing?!". All I could do was start laughing, thinking about my neighbors looking up on my roof seeing this big guy climbing out this tiny window with his wife yelling at him. It must have been a comical sight.

  We worked on the roof as much as we could before we got too cold to be out there much longer.

  Later it had snowed enough that I needed to clear the driveway again another time or two before the end of the night.

  It was an eventful day, full of a lot of manual labor, completely effecting any plans I had for the day. As much as I wanted to complain and not do what was needed, I took action. If you noticed I took some steps to get this done.

• Assess the situation

• Resolve that my day isn't what I planned.

• Make a plan of action. (You can even write it down if that helps)

  • What needs to be done?

  • What order do they need to be done?

  • What is the next step I need to take now?

• Take action.

Unexpected interruptions happen all the time to everybody. That is a part of life. It's actually an aspect of life that helps to keep it interesting. One thing that can help is to see it as an experience that might inspire