Being a mother of four children eight and under, I was a little concerned but not overly so. When I was seven and a half months pregnant with my third child Lucien we survived a Tornado that took off a portion of our house and knocked out our power for eight days, then we had an ice storm and it snowed. Understanding how unromantic candle light is(it flickers so much you wish you were blind)and how cold a house can get without heat I was not digging this upcoming blizzard.
Let me take you way back to January 1999. A blizzard stirred up a lot of trouble the day before my eldest brother was to be married. Being a fierce tempered red head, I recall digging my mother's car out while three or more fully grown men sat in the warm comforts of home watching some terribly important sporting event. You can release a lot of frustration by shoveling snow. I knew just how much snow a blizzard could bring and wasn't really looking forward to it.
Monday night the streets of Springfield seemed like a ghost town. Funny actually because it was quite lovely outside. We had drizzling rain. Not freezing rain. Not sleet. Drizzling rain. All of Springfield was hunkered down already so my husband was home from work drastically early. I wanted to see The King's Speech and took this as a sign from God that he had maneuvered all the elements of the earth to allow me to go see a movie that night. I was about to walk out the door alone when my son Eliot decided to tag along. Not a single person was driving on the very clear streets that night. Eliot and I were the only people at the theater. After getting the proper snack-age, the girl working the counter warns me that this movie has vulgar language and my son probably shouldn't watch it. I assured her that he has already heard everything and knows what happens when he chooses to repeat those words. I don't think the people who worked that night were too happy to see us. Halfway through the movie Eliot says to me, "I know why we are the only ones in the theater!" I ask why and he replies, "Because this movie is so long."Tuesday was a School Improvement Day so the kids had no school. By noon the snow had started falling and it was incredibly beautiful. The lunch business was dreadfully slow at work that day. My work isn't really affected by the weather. People tend to still have birthday's and get married even if there is a blizzard. So I stayed at work until around 2pm. When I went out to scrape my car I noticed a couple things. This blizzard that was pretty from indoors was ugly outside. It wasn't snow. It was tiny ice crystals whipping horizontally at your face. The drifts had already started to build up around the wheels of my car and it had only been snowing two hours. I forgot my gloves at home and had to retreat to the car shortly after beginning to scrape the windshield because I could feel the frostbite on my fingers already. My efforts didn't matter anyway. The wind was so strong my windshield had iced over again already... and then my wipers quit on me. I had to call my husband to come pick me up.
Now here is the thing about men. They tend not to believe you when you suggest they do something sooner than later because later is going to be too late. The weather was bad by now, really bad. Nearly white out conditions with people trying to get home from work early or make it to the store before they closed.
Now here is the thing about women. You are always going to have womanly things happen at the most inconvenient of times. Say like needing a tampon in the middle of a blizzard and not having one.
My husband finally makes his way to pick me up and I walk a block to meet him on the corner. He is trying to clear the windshield and it's just a mess. Meanwhile all the kids are at my mother in laws house and we still need essentials from the store. Essentials I should have picked up say last night during the drizzle. We make our way across town and he drops me off at the store while he goes to pick up the kids. I had been white knuckling the dash board the whole car ride and was glad to be walking into the store until I realized that it was still a really inconvenient time to be a woman, really!
Sometimes it's really embarrassing being a woman. Scratch that, it's always embarrassing being a woman. You have parts that either jiggle too much or not enough and you have all these contraptions to keep them in place, boost them up, or minimize them. Sometimes it's a combination of all three. Inevitably, whenever I have to make an embarrassing purchase for say lady products I always get the boy who is 14 and way to eager to give great customer service. The boy who hails me down across six checkout lines so I don't have to wait in line for the nice lady to check me out. The boy who is stunned when he has to scan my box of tampons. The boy who now can't make eye contact but feels like he should not to be rude which then leaves him in a sort of eyeball spasm searching for something to look at that is neutral. Not the tampons, not my face... so what does every man look at when they are unsure of what to look at? Boobs.
Longer story short... I got all the essentials including TP, milk, and beer. My husband picked me up with the kids in tow and it was just a few blocks to home sweet home.
Tuesday night was a blast. I knew I wasn't going to have to work on Wednesday. The blizzard was like manna from heaven! Josh made dinner(did I mention he went to culinary school but I never get to eat his food because we are always on opposite schedules?). I spent the night eating ice cream, drinking Tequila, and started a ongoing marathon of Bones. Special Agent Seeley Booth, Yowzers! If you are around my age you probably watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer as well as Angel. Excellent TV, great story lines that focused on kick ass adventures and saving the world. What girl doesn't like that?!
The whole house slept in on Wednesday. There wasn't much point in doing anything but being lazy. I made cinnamon rolls(busted open one of those Pillsbury canisters and baked it off)and reactivated the Bones marathon. Sometime in the afternoon Josh's step father came over with a snow blower and help dig us out. By now it was too late for Josh to make it to work so he was home again which meant dinner!
Thursday morning came with a sobering reality. Work. Yuck! School was canceled yet again because the temperature was something like -15 degrees. The only thing that got me through the day was the thought of watching more Bones when I got home. I made brownies and did a little housework to justify the time that I intend to sit on my butt eating brownies and watching Bones.
Friday... Kids still out of school. Honestly this is getting to be a little ridiculous. We live in a two bedroom house. Six people can't get along that well with this much time spent together in so little space. Today I had the unfortunate experience of being bit by the unhappy bug. I tried to shake it off as best as I could by pouring myself into my work. I had a fun Leopard Handbag cake that I was working on for a good friend of mine. It was his wife's birthday and she is over the top but the cake was for a small gathering so it had to be dramatic but small and simple as well. It turned out well, not bad for my first handbag.
Then my mood dipped. I had a lengthy conversation about happiness with someone and just couldn't shake off the cranky. After work I was so glad to come home to my awesome kids. I just happened to read an article on my homepage 5 Habits of Happy Families. It broke my shell. I could see clearly for the first time in weeks. It's me. I'm choosing to be unhappy. It's an article worth reading. http://lifestyle.msn.com/your-life/new-year-new-you/article.aspx?cp-documentid=27521994
I went to bed anxious last night about work today. Since I came back from vacation every Saturday at work has been a nightmare. If something could go wrong, it would. I went in a 5am with the hopes that this Saturday would be different. I needed a good day. It turned out to be a Fantastic Day! I nailed it. My timing was on, my artistry was good, nobody yelled at me, and I had many surprise visitors that kept my spirits high. I choose to be happy with the work that I did and walked away feeling good.
I came home hungry but too tired to make anything but a Latte. I mentioned breakfast sounded good and my wonderful husband began whipping up Belgian Waffles from scratch. He amazes me. I'll admit it. I'm not the easiest person to live with and yet he still carries on.
It's my weekend. Saturday night with my kids and all day Sunday with my husband. Tomorrow is my Mother's Birthday. I hope she knows how much I love her. She is really something else! I think I get my crazy funny caring wild inappropriate humor from her, more than she will probably admit too. I get my stubborn nature from her as well. She is fantastic and I'm proud to be her daughter. Happy Birthday Mom!
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