Yesterday marked my 666th post!

And to avoid any "evil eye" on my blog, I better change that number fast! *grin*


I wanted to take this moment to salute all of you up in the northern states -- those of you who deal with snow... and lots of it... on a regular basis.

I'm no stranger to snow. I lived most of my childhood in various northern states, and have fond memories of building igloos and snowmen, having snowball fights, catching snowflakes on my tongue and then, when I was cold and ready to go in, my mom would have hot chocolate for us (and usually a pot of macaroni soup on the stove).

Ah... fond memories.

But those are the memories that a child would have.

What I don't remember is all the wet boots, gloves, and coats piled up in front of the door, nor do I remember how many times they were miraculously taken care of without a second thought from my siblings and me.

Nope. I don't have any mommy memories of snow.

The whole point of this post is that today, for the first time all winter long, we've got snow... and for upstate South Carolina, we have a decent amount of snow. [we've got at least two inches or so out there, and it's still falling down in big, fat flakes].

My kids -- who have nothing but OUR memories [and various Calvin and Hobbes cartoons] to go by, want to have the ENTIRE snowy winter experience all wrapped up in a few hours. They want the joy of bundling up... snowball fights... snow angels... hot chocolate waiting for them... etc etc etc in the space of an hour or two, while I'm dealing with small children crying because their hands and feet are frozen, and slush and wet clothes strewn everywhere. While I'd like to give them some wonderful childhood memories, I'm afraid I'm all "funned out" already.

And this was only one afternoon.

So for all of you (Beth and Suburban Cowgirl for starters!) who have to deal with this for weeks or even months at a time, I salute you!