When I woke up this morning and saw the delicate layer of snow on my back porch, I knew we were in for at least a delayed opening. My text message told me otherwise: "Due to inclement weather in certain areas, Prince William County Schools will be closed, Code Red, on March 18." Two days before spring and five days before a week's vacation, our family is treated to one last snow day.
I was so excited I immediately logged on to Facebook and placed “likes” next to at least half a dozen comments from people who were up even earlier than I. After a few minutes of scrolling, I yawned and decided my first order of business was to go back to bed. After all, a normal person doesn’t choose to wake up at 5:30 a.m.
But lying there in the darkness of my room, I found that my mind was wide awake with the thrill of possibility: what could I accomplish today, with this “found time”? What hadn’t I reached yesterday or the day before?
I’d already graded papers on Saturday, so I wasn’t behind on that. Check.
I hadn’t written this article, so that’s what I’d do first. Over a steeping hot and impossibly large mug of coffee, of course. Check.
The kids and I had read together and played five games of Connect Four, all of which I’d lost – except for one – but we hadn’t broken out our newly bought game of Hedbanz. That would make a nice change of pace after writing. Check.
Later in the day, two of us had doctors’ appointments we’d need to keep: our oldest daughter for her new pair of glasses and my husband at the dentist. A little bit of snow might close the schools because of a slippery morning rush, but it wasn’t going to cancel existing obligations in the medical world. Drat.
And that’s where things unraveled for me. There was SO much to do, I couldn’t pick one thing. There were friends to catch up with, most of whom are also teachers and so would also be planning their newly found free day. It would be fun to get together with them and catch a movie or head out to House of Bounce.
But there was also the matter of a certain Christmas crèche and an army of snowmen who were camped out behind the couch instead of packed away properly in the attic. It might be nice to get them put away before Easter.
Easter … the kids would want to put the St. Patty’s stuff away and decorate for Easter instead, which would mean hauling out new boxes and finding out how carelessly we’d thrown in last year’s pastels.
Plus, everyone would be protesting cold cereal and wanting a big breakfast. Good thing our oldest knows how to make a mean batch of scrambled eggs.
No wonder weekends go by so quickly. At least one weekend day – usually Saturday – is filled with activities, so we’re out of the house running around, which leaves us with only one day to catch up on chores, projects, not to mention lounging around in pajamas.
Why can’t we fit it all in? Why can’t we be faster? Smarter? More efficient? While at the same time slowing down and basking in the moments of found time that we wouldn’t have had if Mother Nature hadn’t given us one last blast of winter right before spring?
I finally fell back to sleep from my own self-created anxiety which must have exhausted me. At 9:00 a.m. – a more respectable wake-up time for any sane person whose children sleep in at least some of the time – I rolled out of bed to brew some coffee and write this article.
Let the games begin, no matter what they bring.
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