Take it Personally

I noticed with some alarm that I haven't blogged in a very long time, but I can't bring myself to be unhappy about it. In fact, there is little I can bring myself to be unhappy about right now.

The snow is almost gone now. The spontaneous holiday has ended. The snowmen in every yard in the neighborhood have expired, and the Great Blizzard of 2010 has retreated into history. But what a time! Truly, I don't think we've ever had six inches of snow here in my lifetime.

That somewhat short lifetime reached 21 years the day the flakes started falling. I thought it was my own personal birthday snowstorm, but so did everyone else in East Texas.

It was Ethan's snow because he got a snow boat in January and has been praying for snow for the past five months. It's Iryna's snow because she was missing Ukraine so much. The snow belonged to the 9:00 MWF college algebra class of Kilgore College because an exam was scheduled and I know that even the most staunchly irreligious must have uttered a few petitions. With just a few exceptions, we all must have felt personally privileged, like the children of a loving parent who each think they are the particular favorite.


Funny how snow made the whole world stop. My whole family stayed home for the day. Mom made eggplant parmesan for my birthday. Gracie and Lauren came over. Connor drove us to prayer and we prayed happily, then returned home and went outside to sled and snowball in the fresh white inches of snow after dark.

We built a snowman named Herb. He had a really nice smile and I really liked him, but we decided to hook him up with Gracie because he was taller than her. But there were some misgivings. He was a cool guy, but I was sure he'd have a meltdown before the wedding. Sure enough, by the next morning, although the snow hadn't melted, he had completely fallen apart. Cold feet, you know.

The next day, certain relatives of mine hooked a row boat to my grandfather's tractor and gave a new meaning to the term "snow boat." I wasn't there, but apparently Connor drove the tractor around the field yelling maniacally.

I may not have been there for the tractor experiment, but I was involved in using the boat as a bobsled to slide down the hill into the pond. Unfortunately I don't have the pictures of that right now. Only the people in the front got uncomfortably wet. The people in back got pond algae slung on them from the front paddlers. In a few years, this sport could make it into the Olympics.


The power was out for 31 hours, but I suffered only minimal internet withdrawals. The whole thing turned into an unexpected three day holiday in the midst of a hectic semester. I know it's nothing for the folks who get a foot of snow on a regular basis, but when you only see it once in two decades, it's valid grounds for a regional holiday!