Snow Days Are For

Snow days are for sleeping late,
And fresh baked muffins when you wake,
For reading books and drinking tea,
And watching snow fall on the trees,
For homemade soup or maybe chili,
For cartoon watching and being silly,
Whatever you do on your snow day,
You’re not at work—be sure to play!

A snow day is a gift from the universe.  It's an unexpected day off and I think it should be enjoyed.  Sleep in a little bit, have a leisurely breakfast, and spend the day doing things you enjoy that you don't normally have time to do. 

When I was a kid we used to spend a snow day playing out in the snow, playing board games, reading, or playing hide and seek in the basement.  Sometimes I sewed something simple such as a skirt, and sometimes my brothers and I made silly movies.  We had popcorn, and sometimes made pine cones with peanut butter and birdseed on them to hang outside for the birds.  My mother usually baked cookies and it was like a little party was going on.

Since I work in a school, I am fortunate to get a snow day every now and then.  Today was one of them and I am enjoying it very much! I baked 2 kinds of muffins, blueberry and apple cinnamon, and made a pan of honey nut cereal treats.  I love baking and a snow day is the perfect day for that.  That way when my husband and daughter get home from work they'll have treats waiting, as well as baked ziti for dinner.  Sometimes on a snow day I make soup or chili, but decided that baked ziti would be better this time.  I plan to spend some time reading, writing, and just relaxing; things I don't often have time to do but enjoy very much.

It is important to do things you enjoy, and have a day once in a while where that is your priority.  Every day life doesn't usually include much time for the things we want to do because of all the things that we must do to keep work and home running smoothly.  There's nothing like forgetting all the "must dos" and just concentrating on the "want to dos" for a day to refresh your mind. Grab some time when it's presented to you, you'll be so glad you did. 

What Day Is It?

Guess what day it is?!  So says a camel in a popular commercial for car insurance. This has become a daily question for me.  In the past two weeks we’ve had school & work cancelled due to bad weather 3 times, (or is it 4? I lost track), and a day off in observance of Presidents’ Day, plus the weekend.  We’ve shoveled more snow and chopped more ice than I can even talk about.  I spent 2 days feeling ill from a mild stomach bug which had me sleeping a good portion of the day.  That was mostly Thursday, and part of Friday which was Valentine’s Day. We exchanged cards and treats for V-day, the girls, my husband and I.  We had our V-day date the weekend before because Anna was able to stay with Hillary while we went out to dinner.
The next day (Saturday) we had another “little” snow storm during which I went to the dentist for what I thought was going to begin the repair of a tooth.  The tooth was beyond repair and I was in “luck”—the oral surgeon was able to fit me in right away!  My dreams of pizza for dinner were now dashed and later that evening while my family was munching away on eggrolls and other Chinese take-out I was hungrily slurping down egg drop soup—no small feat considering half my head, including my lips, was numb and I was trying to keep the soup off the stitched up vacancy in my mouth.  The following day we spent outside trying to scrape 4” of ice and compacted snow off the roof of my van, the driveway, and the roof on the house. Do we know how to have fun or what!?  My favorite thing was pulling the huge icicles off the house and stabbing them into the snowbanks. We gave up on the driveway; Mother Nature is going to have to take care of that. After our beef stew and cheddar biscuit dinner I decided to use a cake mix I found in the cabinet.  There were 2 pouches of mix in the box; one red velvet and one green velvet.  I thought it would be nice to make the red one as a V-day weekend celebration.  Mix in the bowl, oil in the bowl, then on the way to the sink for water the bowl slipped out of my hand and made a mess on the floor.  At least it missed my pants and slippers.  I cleaned it up and made the green one.  It tasted really good, but I guess it was more of a “come on spring, hurry up!” wish cake. 
   Yesterday I made a trip to the supermarket through the luge track that our local roads have become.  The cashier noted how it was busier than the weekend had been which is unusual.  I suggested that perhaps, like me, people had been digging out over the weekend and making the trek before the next snow event.  She agreed that was likely. 
 Now here I sit today, writing this when I ordinarily would be at work but, the “nuisance snow” the weather forecasters spoke about yesterday has turned into a “big pain in the you-know-where” snow.  I’m going to have to go out there before Bruce gets home and shovel the new snow off the top of the 4” ice base. I guess Mother Nature isn’t ready to take care of that yet.  At least I’ll burn up some calories to counteract the green cake; and I still have no concept of what day it is.