Snow-Airbrushing, the Endless Cavalcade of Snow Days, and a Stomach Bug that Wouldn’t Quit

Greetings, fellow captives of Winter 2014.

If you live anywhere in the mid-Atlantic all the way down through Florida, you are all too aware of the…*ahem*…variant weather patterns we are experiencing this season. Since the start of 2014, our county has had exactly one intact week of school – by which I mean one week without cancellations due to snow, ice, extreme cold, and so on.

I’d love to direct you to the pictures on the right – of travel-sized spray bottles filled with food-coloring-tinted water.

“Oh!” I could coo in a Pinterest-friendly soundbite, “Those dreary winter days trapped inside because of the snow could become so much brighter with this simple art project!”

And, this is a fun project to try out. My mom (an art teacher) was the one who originally sent my brother and I out into the snow with colored water to paint the wintry canvas more than 20 years ago…

—- Aaaaaaand, cut! ——-
(Where the Pinterest-friendly “life is perfection” content stops. Feel free to gear up your kids for the snow-airbrushing.)

But here is the added truth of the matter.

I’m going a little bit crazy.

I’m a major introvert, and I really depend on:

Predictable routines
Planned kid-free times that I can more efficiently grocery shop, cook, work out, etc. Right now, this is 3 mornings per week while my youngest is in preschool.
Doses of quiet in my week (including, yes, mainly those 3 golden mornings) when I can let my frazzled mind rest in stillness

So, I am going – I will use the technical term here – guano crazy. The colored water was a last holdout in my admittedly small arsenal of snow day tricks, and it genuinely occupied my oldest, well, for about an hour.

Why is my arsenal of snow day tricks so small? Because typically, I don’t need more than 2-3 days’ worth of gambits in a given winter. We’ve blown way past that by now. Punxsutawney Phil (who did indeed see his shadow) may not be aware that he’s made it on my hit list.

To complicate the cabin fever, our entire family got hit by a stomach bug last week. Luckily, our girls bounced back within about 12 hours. My husband and I were each worthless for about 36 hours, however. It took lots of sleeping, and some kombucha and full fat yoghurt to pull me out of that awful illness. By the time we had fully recovered, a foot of snow had fallen on the DC metro area. Two more days of school, cancelled.

In other words, two days of being housebound followed by two more days of being housebound. If anybody needs me, I’ll be curled in the fetal position in the corner, eye twitch activated, rocking and mutter-humming to myself U2’s, “Beautiful Day”.

Are you trying to survive an erratic schedule owing to weather and illness? What are YOU doing to keep yourself healthy and sane when you feel like you’re stuck in Groundhog Day?

SOURCE: Primal Kitchen: A Family Grokumentary – Read entire story here.