Snow Ball Effect

We're having a blizzard today.  Meri is home for a snow day and still sleeping...

Leon is awake though and making a mess in the bathroom.  

Who else takes 30 minutes to go use the potty in the mornings?

I will NOT pour his cereal until he comes out with clean hands.

Back in the day, if "I" ever had a snow day, I was up anyway and shoveling or out early  playing in it!

There was the time my brother, Mark, was going to make the world's biggest snow man and he made a giant snow ball MUCH bigger than me.  There was no way he was going to get another ball on top of that one, so he left it.  It turned into the world's biggest ball of solid ice and was the absolute LAST thing to melt that spring.  I remember getting off the school bus and the green grass was growing in the yard and there was still this snow ball melting slowly, smack in the middle of it.  I'm sure the other kids on the bus were betting on when it would be completely gone.

Or one year, my sister and I wanted to do some entrepreneur type stuff,  We were around 11 or 12 years old.  So we got the shovels and my mom drove us around town to look for driveways that needed clearing.  Then she left for a while to run errands.  We didn't have cell phones, but were confident that she'd find us again.

So Ruth Ann and I got jobs to shovel the walks and driveways.  About half way through, probably the first one, I felt faint.  The lady who lived there invited me in to sit down and I enjoyed hot cocoa while Ruth Ann shoveled.  She wasn't very happy about it and from what I remember, she insisted on most of the pay rather than splitting it with me.

Then another time when the road in front of our house got totally snowed in and neither the school bus nor the snow plow could make it through 7 feet of solid snow.  So Mark dug tunnels throughout in the middle of the road.  It was SO awesome!  If you felt rumbling in the tunnels, you had to high tail it for the yard part, because it very well may be the snow plow trying to make it through.  But if you climbed to the top, you could see he was still a mile away. literally.

Then of course the snow journey story...  My dad couldn't get the tractor to work to clear out our driveway to the road and the snow plow hadn't been through anyway.  I was 16 or 17 I think.  So we were snow bound.  And Dad needed rear axle grease for the tractor so he sent us to the local gas station that he always did business with on foot.  It was roughly two - three miles.  

It was Teresa and myself.  Teresa's boyfriend met us about half way and went with.  I might be getting this blizzard confused with another...  I believe we may have been meeting up with Ruth Ann at the gas station after she got a ride there on a snowmobile.  She'd had to work at the nursing home that day.  Then she walked home with us.  I'm getting old.  Memories start to blur.  I'm sure someone will clear it up for me...  From what I recall, I was a smart alec on the long walk and picked on Ken and Teresa a lot.  And there was revenge meted out appropriately I'm sure...  

But anyway, Teresa asked the gas station guys for rear end grease instead of rear axle grease.  So that didn't help the teasing on on the way back home.  I'll let Teresa write her version in the comments if she wants to.  IF she's even reading this!

Now for something completely different...

Robb and I caucused/cauciied last night.  A tiny Iowan cog in the great wheel of democracy!  My butt hurts from those bleacher seats!!!  We sat at the very top so we'd have the wall to support our backs.

So...  it's a snow day.  Being a 100% telecommuter can sometimes suck.  The only days I get a snow day is if the power or internet goes out too!  *knock on wood* The light HAS been flickering...

Speaking of superstitions...  If I ever seriously start depending on a rodent to predict the weather OR the next president for that matter, commit me.

Wait... is using rodents to predict the presidency a thing?