February 2017 column Michiana House & Home Magazine: Snow Days

  I’m not sure when it happened, but at some point in my life, I no longer cared for winter nor the weather that comes along with it. I suspect it has something to do with my driver’s license, my job and my two children, but I don’t get excited about “snow days” anymore. It wrecks my schedule, puts me a day behind and takes months to recover from.

Of course, it was a different story when I was a child. There was nothing better than a snow day! I remember eating my Frosted Flakes at the dining room table and listening to the morning DJ rattle off an ever-growing list of closings every half hour. There was nothing more thrilling than hearing your school name if it was announced or more heartbreaking if it wasn’t.

But if, by an act of God, school was closed it was like being let loose in a candy factory! The day stretched out before me with so much untapped promise and potential, it seemed as if it would never end. What would I watch on television? What would I do? Who would I hang out with? Would I go to my best friend’s house, or call him to come over to mine? Would I get out the sled or stay inside where it was warm and enjoy my Christmas presents I’d barely played with?

Naturally, my mother a bizarre rule to go along with this daylong vacation. I was not allowed to go outside unless it was 11 degrees or warmer. For the life of me I don’t know how she landed on that particular number, but it was lock solid. Maybe it’s a heat wave on the Kelvin or Celsius scale, but in Fahrenheit Land, it’s pretty freaking chilly. Luckily she worked most days, believed in the “honor system” and my brother was not a tattletale. What she never knew never hurt her.

But that’s all in the past. Today, the thought of the city coming to a standstill and my being homebound drives me to distraction. I’d rather have an impromptu vacation when it is 75 and sunny and I can get things accomplished. Still, snow days have a way of forcing us to stop and appreciate the majesty of Mother Nature at a time in our lives when she is most magical.

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