Thursday, March 01, 2007

march came in like a lion

At 6:15 this morning, an unprecedented hour for them, the kids woke up. "Let's get ready and ride the bus this morning!" This was highly unusual. I usually have trouble getting them out the door at 7:40 AM.

However, I then heard The Hermit say "We'd better see if they're having school today!" He turned on the TV, and of course there was a long list of school closings. Our district was among them. Strangely, the kids did not go back to bed. They were too excited at the prospect of a snow day.

Work was not cancelled for me for the day, however after weighing the risks of the 30 mile commute against the benefits of me showing up (I'm in the process of updating our area office web site, which is nice but not essential) I stayed home. It turned out to be a wise decision; this morning we've had periods of snow so heavy you can hardly see, plus high winds piling up drifts everywhere. It would have been a risky commute home.

Instead, somehow the cooking instinct kicked in. I went out to the cook shed after breakfast and cleaned things up. Then I put a rye bread in the bread machine, put some old bread in the oven to dry for bread crumbs, made teriyaki sauce, put a roast in the slow cooker for dinner, got some venison steaks out to thaw, which I will make into jerky later, and there are two sticks of butter softening on top of the stove for a batch of chocolate chip cookies later.


And this is how we ride out a blizzard here in Minnesota. It's as good a time as any to sample the home brew (Belgian Witbier on the left, delicious, Three Hearted Ale on the right, delicious, both kits from Northern Brewer). The cheese is tomato basil Gouda from a farm about thirty miles away.

Another blizzard survival tip: Finding the Pokemon Colosseum video game disc, which has been missing for about a month, will keep kids occupied for the whole day. (That is, me finding the disc in a pile of other stuff. ) That, and a Jetsons DVD. Next up: King of the Hill, our new favorite diversion. No, we're not running outside to pile up on a snowdrift. We have seasons 1 and 3 on DVD.

I'm kind of liking this. Maybe school will be cancelled tomorrow too!

4 comments:

R.Powers said...

I'm thinking a snow day must be a magical sort of day off when you're a kid.

I love King Of The Hill too. Hank is one special guy, and what a cool bunch of friends.

That's some very beery lookin' beer.

Deb said...

FC- I always enjoyed listening to WCCO, which was THE radio station you listened to in Minnesota, when I was a kid. They would read off the school closings alphabetically, and I would hold my breath as they got close to "R". We had a few magical snow days that I remember.

King Of The Hill rules! I love the subtle plot lines, and Boomhauer is always fun to listen to.

It's as beer as beer can get. :)

Deb said...

Just saw it on the district Web site, so it's official: SCHOOL CANCELLED FRIDAY! I don't care if work ain't cancelled, I'm takin' me a vacation...

Anonymous said...

We, here in southern Minnesota, listened to WCCO radio too. Boone and Erickson in the mornings. We would wait breathlessly through the alphbetized list. Our school was Waterville. We would hear Wanamingo, Watertown and finally, when you just couldn't hold your breath anymore....Waterville! My parents always made it a very "family" day for my younger brother and me. I remember chocolate chip cookies, too! Aaaahhh, the memories of snow days

Cindy