Sometimes it Pays to Pay

I'm not one to jump right to hiring help for house things. I don't like to pay people to do things I can do myself. But you saw what our driveway looked like after the recent storms. There was just no way for me to do it. Or Roger. Or anyone who only had a shovel.

So I turned (on the suggestion of a friend) to Craig's List. I love Craig's List, but honestly, hadn't even thought about it for finding a person to come clean our driveway. I had called a couple of landscapers/plowers and they all told me that due to the overwhelming demand, if I didn't already have a contract they couldn't help me. (That's not very good for business, in my opinion, but I guess I am not in the business so I don't know.)

Anyway, today a guy name Greg came to our house and snowblowed, shoveled, and salted our driveway! It was glorious (to me) to stand at the window and watch as someone else cleared all that crazy snow. It would've taken me days at the rate I was able to do it on my own (one shovelful a day, approximately.)

In the end, he asked for $35 and I gladly handed him a check. It was great. And I'm so glad I did it.

(In case you are wondering... Roger was fully supportive of my decision to pay to have someone come. I guess he didn't really have a choice though, since I didn't tell him before the guy was already working. :-) I'm glad he didn't mind. I guess it can be a Valentine to each other!)

I'd also like to add, that I could see/hear at least 3 neighbors blowing their own driveways today. It makes me really sad to know that nobody has offered to help us. It is obvious (to anyone who regularly sees who is going and coming from our house, like neighbors...) that Roger is not here right now. His car was parked in the snow-filled driveway for a week and then moved to the street where it has been since Sunday. I've only left the house once since Sunday. Why wouldn't anyone offer to help us? If I had a snow blower and my neighbor was pregnant and had 2 little kids and her driveway wasn't shoveled, I'd help her. I'd have done it long before now. Did you know that when I was 7.5 months pregnant with Ian (visibly, obviously pregnant) we had a decent sized snowfall and I was out shoveling all by myself. My neighbor across the street blew off his whole driveway and then got in his car to go somewhere, he intentionally turned the wrong way and went around the cul-de-sac so he could stop in front of my driveway and say, "You know, You really shouldn't be shoveling in your condition." He never offered to help. He is 2 houses down from the lady who lets her dog dump in the end of our driveway any time she can.

I really don't like this neighborhood at all. Hopefully nobody looking to buy our house reads this.