Shoveled Me.

We love our neighborhood.

It’s beautiful all year round. We moved here in March of last year and NOTHING is pretty in March but we were struck by the beauty of the charming old homes and the warmth that they offered our imaginative spirits.

Then spring came…oh… blossoms covering every tree and little flowers sprouting from the ground that bordered the sidewalks.

Summer and fall were even more beautiful.

Our beautiful home. Photo by Andrew Vaché

To boot our neighbors are wonderful. We both feel like this is the friendliest place we’ve ever lived.

Don’t get me wrong…it has it’s downsides like the neighbor who keeps trying to convince me to enroll Clare in his weird daycare…and the young woman who chooses to give her family a break and come outside to yell at her boyfriend on the phone (I like the drama). But we love our neighbors. Never have we felt so welcome as in this place.

In fact, we are always trying to get people to move here. Hasn’t worked so far. whatever…

The houses are cheap, the people are wonderful, the foliage is lovely and we thought to ourselves, “This place is perfect. We feel safe. We’re inspired. The bank isn’t broke because of our mortgage. What could be better?”

The Shovel. Photo by Andrew Vaché

Then it snowed. Andrew bought a shovel, which was hard to find, to dig us out of the 2 feet we received this weekend.

Andrew shoveled halfway through the storm and had planned to shovel the next 8 inches the day after.

That night Clare woke up at 2 o’clock. Yeah…shame on me for bragging that she slept through the night.

So when she woke up I brought her out to our living room and fed her and walked out to look at the snow only to see fresh footprints leading up to the house and on to our porch. (!!!!)

Now, I have several irrational fears: raccoons, falling on a knife and climbing mountains. But robbers is not one of my irrational fears so I walked back to our bedroom with my 3 month old daughter and quietly whispered to Andrew, “I think someone was on our porch.”

Andrew sprung awake and onto his feet and went out to check.

Low and behold someone had taken our shovel but not the boots left next to it or any other winter valuables we carelessly left out for vandles and crooks.

Not only did they take our nice new shovel but they left their old one.

Really!?!

You left us your crappy old shovel?! What a nice thief! Geez.

I almost wanted to say, “Thank you.”

Even the hoodlums in our neighborhood are generous.

Andrew didn’t even miss the one he bought. He said the crappy one they left was easier to use.

In other parts of my world: I’m gonna have another nephew! Maybe they will name him Valkyrie after his loving auntie.