My Favorite Snow Day.
I hate being cold.
We aren’t supposed to say hate in our family, so please don’t tell my children.
My friends down South think I must be “used to it” by now. But how do you get used to being cold?
You are either cold. Or you’re comfortable. There’s no getting used to it, there’s just learning how to get warmer.
The irony in all of this (or at least I think it’s irony) is that Nebraska is actually the warmest place we’ve lived in the past 15 years.
I’ve tried to embrace cold-weather activities. But I just want to embrace my blanket instead.
But Coulter’s currency is time.
And being outside.
With his mom.
And we are crazy blessed with the gift of time.
But he’s an almost 8-year-old boy and I’m a 40-year-old mom and there’s only so much dribbling,shooting, throwing, hiking, tackling, nerf-war ninja, wrestling and did I mention the tackling that this Momma can take!
Like my friend said recently. Can we just sit and color, already!?
Not today.
It’s almost 60 degrees. Piles of snow left from last weekend’s storm (the storm that the weather people kinda forgot to tell us about), and it’s soft and slushy and perfect for building snowmen and perfect for throwing snowballs and BAM!
Mom’s all wet.
And cold.
And I want to go inside. But I remember the currency; the building in and the building into and the building up in the way that they should go and I literally, instantly have a seriously great idea.
Snow-Baseball.
It is my favorite sport.
Mostly because of the pants.
Just kidding.
Coulter! I’ll pitch the ball to you!
He hits it with his hand.
He runs the bases.
I throw snowballs to get him out.
I miss every time.
He mentions something about “ghost runners” and I’m confused and they seem to score a lot of points because I can’t figure out how to hit the ghost runner but we are together. In the snow. And it’s 60 degrees.
And I am warm.
Time.
His language of love.
(Emma Claire was so obviously trying to cut her brother out of the above pic. And let’s not have any comments about my hair, shall we?I have a feeling my Mom’s going to call and gently question as to when my next hair appt. is!)
Continuing on…
The beginning of our snow day had started at 5:00 a.m. Boot camp with a chick-a-dee who’s a heck of a lot stronger and faster than I. 7:45 conference call for Rodan+Fields (the healthy skin branch of my training and wellness biz). 2 clients at 8:30. A few hoops at 9:30 with the C man and by 10:30, I seriously wanted to crawl into bed.
And I did. Do the research. Naps are totally essential to healthy living and wellness. 🙂
It’s my lunch hour. Everybody gets a lunch hour.
Afterwards, I suggested family painting hour and that’s when Coulter laughed and said how ’bout a snowball fight.
And it was a beautiful day. A perfect snow day. And while we played I watched cars drive in and out of our normally sleepy neighborhood and I watched as they traded their currency for Ms. Mary’s life. They took out boxes and furniture and piece by piece they filled their cup with her things.
And it was hard to watch. And I wanted to call the police. But turns out having an estate sale is not illegal. But here is a woman who lost her husband, and her home and all of her belongs in about 2 weeks time and then got shipped off to the retirement home and here are these people and their currency.
And it was gross.
And I thought, look at all these poor people. Not poor as in ‘bless their hearts’ poor. Poor as in we need money, poor. Looting her life. Icky cars and icky people and her son who needs money and what about her life and what about her memories and —
And.
And I have her piano.
But I convince myself that somehow that’s different.
Because somehow I’m different. And I would tell you how exactly, but I’m still working out that argument in my head.
I shamed myself for these judging thoughts and I shamed myself for cold versus hot and watching her life be torn apart–
It became clear.
Less “no”. More snow.
Building into your children who cares if you’re cold?
And there is freedom in time. Each day it’s the same. Time blasts into pieces the walls of status and power; of socio-economics, and race and religion.
And when time is your currency; it’s impossible to feel poor; to be poor.
And so God above all gods, help me remember.
Less “no.” More snow.
More Yes.
To time well spent.
Raising Magnolias 