Never Before In My Life!

byreading

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Updated 10 years ago

I was a child in 8 inches of snow! Well, I really did not know if the snow would even come. I was trying to not get in the same mindset as the other teachers around me. One I work with said, "the snow will blow over us." The other one said, "it will hit us and I will see you on Monday." Then my great friend from many years ago I know well told me her husband was told to expect 4 days without going home. He clears snow off the county roads. My husband said, the clouds are not right.

Well, we got let out at 11:15 A.M. at school that day. I went to teach my adult Mexican students before I went to see mother on my normal Wednesday visits. Then, I started to think the roads might not be as safe and so I texted my stepdad. He texted back and told me he thought I made a wise decision and to expect bad roads in about 2 hours.

Well, I was happy I could have a longer lesson with my students, since I had taken our normal Tuesday to go clown at children's disabled night. (That blog is called Can A Clown give a boost.....) I happily settled down to one on one reading lessons with my 3 adults.

I told one of my male students about the snow and ice that was expected. He kind of gave a cringed look about that one. I told him I did not know it was going to happen and I was not going to count any chickens yet.

After the lesson, I saw one of my elementary CDC student's mom and sister and we visited a while and then I was ready to go. I did not see any precipitation, but when I opened the door, it was sleeting. I made a "whoooo" noise at that before I knew the sound came out of my mouth.

So the ice came down and then the snow came down. I was glad we did not loose any electricity. I knew of people further south that did. My husband was not well that night. He mostly slept and I worked on WA.

The next morning, it was beautiful! But was it packable? I reached out and grabbed some and some stuck together in the middle of my hand. I decided to get all layered up with my clothes and go with my 10 year old outside.

He did not show my enthusiasm for buidling a snowman, especially since it was not packing. I found if I dug deeper in the snow, I could pack some. My elderly next door neighbor was out sweeping and she asked me if I was going to build a snowman. I knew she would have loved to go out and play, but her frail body had not allowed such for a while. Still I really wanted to build a snowman. I ended up building a little one about the size of a ruler and then I went in.

Later a few hours later, the sun had shown some and the snow was more packable than before. I told my son we would go out again and some kids were out playing. I saw my small snowman that was about 7 inches tall and tried again.

This time the sun had shone some so the snow was a little more manageble, but it was still a job. I was able to make some mounds of different sizes. I thought maybe if they froze, I could piece a snowman together. Pretty soon, I decided to do something else.

I walked in my backyard and looked at some deer tracks. Then I saw the woods. We always avoid that area because of the tics, but hey, you don't have to worry about tics in snow. So I walked down to a creek. The water was flowing and I took a nice quiet video of the creek rushing. You can hear the birds in my short video. During my walk, my left ankle started to hurt, so I had to be careful and step sideways in my jungle boots. I was able to go up to the house after I negotiated some briars.

The next day, I was not going to go out to play in the snow. I had to do some shopping and my husband needed me to check on a clown gig the next day. He was going to get a pie in the face to collect donations for the Children's Miracle Network at Fred's Dollar Store. I was glad he did not have to be a clown the next day because he had not been well.

I went to the hardware store which was the only place in town to get a filter for our heater/air conditioner. I ran into a lady who I had worked with in the past for PTO. She was talking about since everything was cancelled that she would be able to turn over her fertilizer for her garden. I looked at her funny and asked, "can you do that in the snow?" She laughed and said, "well I didn't know it was going to snow." Then I explained to her my great desire to build a snowman.

She told me that she had heard that it used to be normal for kids to report running in snow up to their knees. I said, "but I had never had the experience growing up in Memphis, TN. I told her the snow would not pack. She looked at me with a twinkle in her eye and said, "I think it will pack now."

Well, I was going to find out. I got home and put my groceries away. I went back out to pick up some snow and IT PACKED! I went back in and told my son the snow was packable and he could make anything he wanted! I was going to build a snowman. He chose to swing his plastic sword at snow instead, but I was already at work.

As I worked with delight rolling the snowball, my knees were getting wet. I had to sit down sometimes. Then I would get back on my knees. My husband who was inside delighted in my enthusiasm and took videos of the process. I used my clown voice in the video and at one time he told me my voice echoed.

Then as I was rolling the second snowball, I decided I wanted to build a clown snowman. I told my son and he was interested and told his dad what my idea was. Immediately, even though he was not feeling well, he got to work. My son came out with a green bowler plastic hat and Ugg the Clown gave up his first pair of clown shoes. He also sent out a red bandanna, and a pinch on plastic rubber clown nose.

My son and I were working on the arms. We had to find some dead branches. My husband balloon twisted a red dog and we wanted to find a way for the balloon to look like it was held by Funny the snowman. My son named him already.

Then we were surprised to find that a stick could be stuck through the balloon dog legs without popping. So we used stick arms. The first stick broke so we soon found another one. My son thought it was neat using his sword to bore a hole in the side of the snowman in order to put the stick arms in.

It was time to work on the face. I found I could mold the snow into a nose for the rubber clown nose to pinch onto. Then my husband came out with a balloon twisting of a mouth he came up with. Really neat, but we had to find a way to secure it. We took some sticks with little forks that turned up so the mouth would stay on.

Last were the eyes. My husband came out with a pair of balloon eyes all blown up. How were we going to attach them? I thought a while, but then he came out and he had taped the balloon eyes to Q-tips! They were perfect to stick into the snowman head. They really looked googly in the wind.

I helped my neighbor put together her snowman and then I was ready to go in. When I went in I was very cold and it took a while to start feeling warm My husband had already watched the videos he had taken a few times. He was still not feeling good healthwise, but he was really in a good mood after we talked a while about the snowman quest.