Snow Rest for the Weary

The last week has certainly been abnormal. That's saying a lot, coming from a household where "normal" means absolutely, positively nothing.

There was actually snow in the forecast, which is nothing more than a four-letter word to some, but is a hot commodity to me. I love me some snow. I love watching it fall, I love seeing everything blanketed in white, I love snow angels and snowmen and throwing snowballs at my husband at my kids, and yeah, I'll admit it...I love a good reason to stay at home for a few days.

So early in the week, I made a stinking grocery list (I hate making a grocery list) and stocked up on enough food to feed a small army. $140-ish later, I realized that I had stocked up on exactly enough food to feed a small army breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but *gasp* had neglected to stock up on snacks for in between.

And it so was that on Thursday evening, mere hours before the first predicted snowflakes were to fall, we found ourselves at Walmart.

It is a darned good thing that I had included milk and bread into my breakfast and lunch plans, because there sure wasn't any to be had on that night!

And on Friday morning, we awoke to this:

Beautiful snow, covering the ground, and more still falling. We knocked out a little bit of schoolwork (poor, unfortunate homeschooled kids rarely get snow days) and then settled down to doing...not much of anything. And it was glorious.

Until my kid decided that it was TIME.

Yes, I spent an hour of my snow day carefully applying PURPLE hair color all over her beautiful blonde head. She had been asking for purple hair for months, and we'd kept putting her off.

You can't be in (insert name of whatever shows we were doing at the time) with purple hair, we said. You can't go swimming with purple hair, we said. Not our best argument, being that the pool had been closed for quite some time already, with months to go before it reopens. What will Papa say?, we said.

Don't do it, her friends told her. You'll look weird/freakish/emo/intimidating, they told her. Just do a strand or two, they told her.

But she persisted...for long enough, and through enough objections, that I finally figured she really, truly knew what she wanted. And so, we went purple.

And you know what? She ROCKS it. Like, she's the rare individual that is actually, truly pretty with purple hair. Lucky girl. And I am jealous, both because I could never rock the purple locks, and because I'd never have the nerve to try - and certainly wouldn't have had the nerve at her age, in the midst of all the awful middle school drama.

So, rock on, my lovely.

Unfortunately, the purple "stuck" best at the roots and has already faded a lot from midway down, leaving her with an unintentional ombre effect that we'll attempt to annihilate soon with still more purple.

Once the purple-fication was complete, it was time to head back out into the snow. The girls (mostly Rachael, Milly was a little bit chicken) loved sledding down our hilly driveway...

...and Milly reprised her role as Pattie Cake in The Homecoming quite nicely by making a gorgeous snow angel in the front yard. Sans hat or gloves because, you know, she wasn't cold...

After going nowhere for three days - did I mention how lovely that was? - the hubby finally busted out of here with the help of his truck this morning. He went to the store for a few staples (more milk, more bread) and somehow found himself at the hardware store, where he picked up two new sleds to make up for last year's huge sled with a crack in the middle. The girls adore these little blue numbers and promptly started racing down aforementioned hilly driveway, using Daddy's truck tracks as "lanes" for their sleds. Milly claims that her sled is faster; I haven't had the heart yet to tell her that it's likely because it's pulling less weight. 

They love their sleds so much that we were even outside in the dark earlier this evening, still racing down the driveway. One more reason why I love the snow: I don't get to see my girls play in it nearly often enough!

And now, it seems as though our version of normal is preparing to return. Hubby has returned to work, and I sure hope his truck (Old Unreliable) starts when it's time to come home in the morning, because none of the other vehicles will make it out of our driveway yet. Temperatures will be in the low 50s tomorrow, so I'm sure enough will melt so that I can make it out by tomorrow night - and it had better, because rehearsal waits for no one.

Public schools are closed again tomorrow, so the oldest gets another day off...the homeschooled ones will wake up to schoolwork ready to be completed, though. And the house - largely neglected during the course of my "weekend off" - certainly needs a little attention.

But all of the work to be done was worth it - I so needed a winter break.