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The Best Laid Plans . . .

I was awakened suddenly this morning by the phone jing-jangling in my ear.  It was pitch black outside, and I had been sleeping like the dead.  It could have been 2AM or 6AM; I had no clue.  It felt like the middle of the night.

As my husband jumped up and scrambled to find a telephone receiver (which was, miraculously, in its docking station for probably the second time in its entire existence) my mind started flitting around the family, wondering who could be so sick or injured as to warrant such a rude interruption to my beauty sleep. 

As soon as my husband located the phone and said a groggy "hello", I heard my cell phone’s familiar song serenading me from the kitchen below us.  By this time I was sure someone had died.  What else could be so important that someone was calling both phone numbers???

Husband was silent with the phone at his ear as I struggled to break free of the tangle of blankets that held me captive.  Before I could make my escape, he hung up and said, "School’s on a two-hour delay."

SCHOOL.  It took a moment for reality to set in.  No one was dead or maimed.  It was just the school district calling.  I breathed a great sigh of relief and sunk back into the welcoming warmth of my bed while my heartbeat returned to its normal pace and my entire head of hair turned instantly to a snowy white.  How appropriate.  I match the ground outside.

Yes, we got an inch of snow in the night.  And INCH.  You can see actually the grass peeping through the fluffy white stuff.  This is Pennsylvania, people.  And schools are running two hours late.  Surely this is a new level of pathetic.

Once I knew no one in my immediate family was sick or dying, the indignation set in.  They can’t throw some salt on the roads and carry on as usual?  Since when is school delayed in the northeast for an inch of snow?  Now don’t get me wrong.  I love a Snow Day.  But THIS is not a Snow Day.  A Snow Day requires enough snow to make a snowman.  THIS is a School Day.

And do you know what it means when the public schools are on a two-hour delay?  Well, I’ll tell you.  That means that my daughter’s preschool is closed.  And THAT means all my well-laid plans are down the drain. 

Allow me to set the scene for you.  There is not a slice of bread in the house for sandwiches, not even a heel.  There is all of an inch of milk in the bottom of the carton.  There are no more goldfish crackers or pretzels to snack on.  I’m all out of dinner meat in the freezer.  If I don’t get to the grocery store TODAY, you’re going to be reading Musings of Old Mother Hubbard.

Plus.  I lifted weights on Monday.  My muscles have been torn down and rebuilt and are ready for another torture session.  I don’t want to let another day go by without getting a workout. 

In other words, today was supposed to be Grocery Shopping and Weight Lifting Day.  NOT Snow Day.

I had the rest of my week planned out beautifully.  I would do my grocery shopping and weights this morning.  Tomorrow morning I would run to the mall and find some fun sparkly earrings and sheer nylons for The Party on Saturday night.  And Saturday morning I have a date at the nail salon so my feet are peep-toe perfect and my hands don’t look like the Irish Washerwoman.

As an aside, who is the Irish Washerwoman, anyway?  I heard about her my entire life growing up.  All I know is, I don’t want her hands.

So anyway.  My plans.  They were dashed with one mere phone call in the wee hours of this snowy morning. 

I suppose I could lay down the law and insist that my daughter accompany me to the grocery store and the gym.  I am, you know, the parent.  But a grocery shopping trip with a reluctant 4-year-old and an active 2-year-old is not my idea of fun.  I liken it to a root canal without novocaine.  I try to avoid it at all costs.  And while my 2-year-old loves going to the gym to play while I work out, my 4-year-old has never been and is not very receptive to new childcare situations.

**UPDATE**  Since I started writing this post (at the wee hours of this morning — since I couldn’t go back to sleep after the phone(s) rang, I figured I might as well get up and blog about it) I have discovered that my 4-year-old (whose preschool follows a different school district’s closings, obviously one that has more common sense than our own) does, after all, have school at her regular time. 

Which would be good news except I still have to be home at 10am for my son’s bus, which is of course right smack-dab in the middle of my 2.5 hours of freedom that my daughter is in school. 

So I have a choice to make.  I can accomplish one of my goals unhindered by a whiny preschooler, but not both.  Which would you chose?  Workout?  Or groceries? 

Tough call.

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23 Responses

  1. Do the grocery thing, and while you are trudging up and down the aisles, pump some soup cans and one of those 2.5 gallon jugs of laundry soap. If anyone gives you a funny look, smile proudly and say you’re in training for the Housewife Olympics.

  2. Here in NC, if we got an inch of snow, school would be closed all day! Know how you feel though 🙂 It’ll be interesting to see what you picked!

  3. Sometimes reading your blog is like reading my other personality 😉 I also have 2 yr old, and a halfday-er {kindergarden} as well as an 8 and 10. Those hours when there is only ONE kid are like a vacation! Though yours sounds slightly better behaved than mine 😉

    I say do the grocery store thing or you’ll have to listen to the little heathens whinning about not having said fishies, milk or meat. Lifting the kids in and out of the cart has to count for SOMETHING workout related right?!

  4. this was our experience with snow growing up in MD… you’d get a snowflake, the grocery stores would be packed and schools would be delayed or cancelled.

    When we lived in WI, where snow is a fact of life, we’d get 12 inches of snow and school would be on time. The only time it was ever delayed was when the wind chill was -35.

    Blessings,
    K

  5. 1 inch!? On Tuesday we got at least five inches of snow with winds creating drifts up to a couple of feet high and schools and buses were ticking along as usual. But that’s the great white north of Canada for you! 🙂

  6. Ha. We close for slush in the far reaches of the South. After all, it’s semi-frozen, right? Snort. I grew up here and think that’s ridiculous, but then again I suppose that the black ice/freezing slush can be a hazard for those who only *potentially* drive on it once a year and the lack of equipment to move it to the gutters. I learned how to drive in snow, at least reasonably, from my dad who grew up on a farm on the Kentucky/Ohio border and actually knew what snow was. Therefore, I laugh at these people here…but then again, I don’t trust their driving in the rain any more than the slush or flurries, so I suppose I’ll let school close when they’re trembling in their shoes.

    I say grocery store….gotta eat, after all. Then again, if you work out, you can justify dinner out tonight, right?

  7. Groceries. For sure.

    Also – I am so sad about snow. I want snow! Also – I am impressed that your school district calls parents. Mine does not.

  8. If a car can drive around here there is no snow day. It can dump a foot of snow but if a car can get through it, there is school. And a delay? Not even heard of.

  9. Oh my, that’s a tough call. I’d say get your work out done–you’ll feel better. Then get the groceries with a child or two–but just a quick trip for essentials. Like ice cream.

    Of course, it’s all over now. Which did you choose? Sorry for the crazy No Snow Day Thing–can’t Ma Nature cooperate with our plans???

  10. I would defnitely choose to do the grocery shopping without your preschooler!

    I live in Colorado and we’ve had so little snow this year! I definitely prefer snow days over delayed starts, but this time of year, my schedule is SO full of things that *must* be done while I’m child-free, that ANY interruption throws me off track so easily.

  11. Found you through Stie’s site.

    I also HATE my workout plans to be cancelled. Especially by a snow day. Here in Portland we completely shut down if we get a tiny bit of snow. I guess all we can handle is rain.

  12. Oooh, that is hard! I love how I feel after I work out and losing my flying squirrel arms has really made me appreciate working out even more. On the other hand, a bunch of whining people begging for food is not so great to deal with.
    Which did you choose? 🙂

    I have a award for you at my blog!

  13. I just started reading your blog this week and read some of your old posts. Anyway, I live in West Michigan where snow days are only if we get dumped a foot of snow over night. My brother lives in West Chester, PA and laughs about the snow days they get there after growing up w/ snow days in MI.

  14. Definitely groceries! Being woken up to a ringing phone is one of the scariest things. I know exactly how you felt when you were awoken. It is pretty funny that school was delayed for an inch of snow. We got five overnight and my kids still attended on time. Funny how cities work, huh?

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