What's a Snow Day Mommy?

Well another school year is over, and not one single snow day was used. In fact I don't even think they're called snow days anymore.

When I was a kid we could count on missing at least a week of school. Why in 1972, or was it 68, school was shut down for an two entire weeks! Charlie who lived across the street from me, turned his backyard into one gigantic winter wonderland. Kids began queuing up in front of his house around 8 in the morning to take their turn in the white frozen tunnels he built that spanned the entire yard.

My mother of course forbid me from venturing into the intriguing tunnels. "It could collapse at any time," she reasoned, "and would take days to dig you out. By that time you'd be dead from suffocation." Good old fear, worked every time.

It didn't take Charlie long to realize he was sitting on a gold mine, and started charging kids their weeks allowance to get in. That lasted for a few days until someone's father got wise and complained to Charlie's dad about it. Poor Charlie had to shovel apart all his hard work, and give all the kids their money back.

In a way, I kind of feel sorry for kids today. Most will never get to experience the huge amounts of snowfall needed to close every school within a 50 mile radius. Pitiful how they won't be able to experience the excitement of staying home with Mom all day, every day with no foreseeable end in sight. Hmm, maybe there is one silver lining to climate change after all.

Walking the Green Line can Prove Embarrassing to Some

A while back I read a certain fact which has haunted me; Styrofoam takes 900 years or more to decompose! First I always wonder how these things are figured out, but then understanding that I'm no scientist, if the source is reputable then I take their word for it. In this instance it was from National Geographic, so I figured those kids knew their stuff.

Anyhow every time I went out to dinner and didn't finish the meal, I started to get anxious over which was worse; to take the leftovers home in a Styrofoam container, or to waste the food. I decided wasting the food was not an option, so I needed to come up with a better solution than accepting take home Styrofoam containers. Here's what I do now, bring my own containers. Seems simple enough to hide a plastic container in your purse, then when the time comes and the server asks if you would like to them to wrap what's left on your plate, you can simply respond, "Yes and please put it in here," whipping the container out of your bag and handing it to them, before they have a chance to think about it. Believe me it works most of the time, but be fore warned, if your husband is anything like mine, once the meals through and he eyes the server heading over your way, he'll quickly excuse himself and head off to the bathroom.