Growing Pains

About a month and a half ago, we bought a new car. We'd had every intention of getting another automatic, which was the only thing I knew how to drive. But, because of this, that, and the other thing, we ended up walking out of a dealership with a red standard, complete with sunroof.
So began the 'stick' driving lessons.
My husband, who has been very patient and long-suffering throughout this process, is my teacher, and so far, we've had about five or six lessons.
By the second lesson, I was up to gear five, motoring along a lonely stretch of road happily devoid (for the most part) of cars, traffic lights, stop signs and pedestrians.
By last week's lesson, I was pretty happy. The engine had only cut out twice, I was shifting and downshifting with comfortable ease, and I was merrily feeling that driving a standard was much more fun than driving an automatic.
And then we went on today's lesson. Well, first I suggested that I try driving from our house to the road that we use. I felt pretty confident until I was actually in the car, on the driveway. Gone was all the bubblyness from last week. Suddenly I felt like we were back to lesson one. Or two, at the most.
The engine cut going out of the driveway. Then it cut at the first stop sign. Then I accidentally shifted into first instead of third as I was downshifting, which made the engine rev and completely derailed any little confidence I had remaining.
So we decided to go back to my safe little parking lot to try and get it back.
The parking lot was covered in snow. For three consecutive days flakes drifted down from the sky. On Saturday, the flakes congealed on the ground as packing snow. The densest, stickiest, heaviest kind of snow. The perfect snow for snowmen. The worst kind of snow for driving.
But we were fine as I curved and stopped. Started and curved. Until I arced into one part of the lot. "Go forward," my husband urged. Nothing. "Go backward." Nothing. Uh oh.
Yup. On top of everything else, I got us stuck in a parking lot, literally two minutes away from our house. It took at least half an hour of pulling, pushing, shoveling (with a window scraper) and lining the tire tracks with the rubber floor mats to get out of there.
I made sure that my husband drove home, and I'll probably laugh about this later - when I finally feel comfortable with clutches and gears.