“Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home.” ― Edith Sitwell

We’ve just had several “snow days” down here in the deep South. Very unusual. We are more used to Hurricane warning days, high water alerts or (this year) a derecho wind storm wreaking havoc in downtown Houston.

If you have children in the house, a snow day means some unexpected adventures. I saw pictures of friends and family who had their kids out sledding and putting up miniature snowmen. An unexpected day of adventure. Maybe something we all need now and again. Wouldn’t it feel great to throw off the cares of life for a quick sled down a snow covered hill (on a boogie board)?

I awoke to sounds of my house creaking in the bitter cold during the middle of the night. Please pipes, don’t burst! Thanksgiving as me and most of my potted plants survived. Like the guy on that TV commercial likes to say, our houses down here are just not made for really cold weather. The Texas power grid seems to have stayed up and running. Snow on the ground, covering up everything and made the whole street seem like a scene from a dream. No one even noticed all the HOA violations.

And just like that, within days, the weather is back to normal here on the Texas coast. Freezes happen just once a year, to kill off your plants and make you have to dig around for that big coat buried somewhere.

An unexpected lock down always means new time to allocate to something else – no heading off to work, school or other travels.

• Even more TV
• Get some work from home projects done
• Spend time with the kids
• Write a blog
• It’s too cold to clean up the garage
• Hopefully Christmas has already been put up??

Seems like something extraordinary needs to happen in my day after day to get me to stop and smell the roses – or at least notice where they even are. I so often miss what the “snow days” can offer. Caught up in all the busy-ness that actually doesn’t really matter in the long run. When I think about what does matter, I too often miss it because of the cares of life and the tyranny of the urgent.

“When you have once seen the glow of happiness on the face of a beloved person, you know that a man can have no vocation but to awaken that light on the faces surrounding him. In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” ― Albert Camus

I’m going to try and have a “snow day” more often:

• Take more walks – as short as two minutes after meal has health benefits!
• Lose my phone – stop frittering away my attention surplus
• Write stuff down in my Commonplace notebook – then stop worrying
• Send a few thank you notes – there’s always someone who needs to know
• Turn off the TV – maybe some music instead
• Sit down and look through some old photos – reinvest in my memory banks
• Take a drive to nowhere, windows down – no longer being “driven” by the schedule

What are you planning for your next snow day?