Easily Excitable

I know this is new news to all of you Georgians, but earlier this week, we had quite the snow experience. I would say ‘snow day’ but that wouldn’t be 100% accurate.

I have declared it a snow stint. 

And even then, that would really be underselling it. This snow was a lifetime snow- a generational snow, if you will- one that we will reference as the ‘snow of 2025.’

(You might can tell I grew up hearing about the flood of ’94.)

And what a snow stint it was!

It was a great day on the farm, and from what I’ve seen and heard, it looks like everyone else had a great time too. 

Here’s what our daySSS snowed in looked like.

Bleckley County Schools closed for 2.5 days…WHAT?!

If you live in Middle Georgia, you know the following to be fact: 

Bleckley County is the stay-open school. 

If Bleckley closes down the school system, you, my friend, had better batten down those hatches and strap in for a long night. 

Or day.

Or multiple days. 

We folks here in Bleckley County are the real ones. ONLY THE STRONG KEEP THAT SCHOOLHOUSE OPEN.  

It’s irregular to close for one day, much less two and a half! 

All teachers and staff loosed a collective sigh of delight and relief upon hearing this news. HONESTLY, that communal exhale was likely what melted the snow.

All the things I thought I enjoyed as a high schooler? They are now magnified as a teacher. 

Weekends, holidays, days off, and the cafeteria’s chicken wings: everything is better when you’re a teacher, right? 

Our screen door was hesitant to welcome the snow.

I have established that we live in a cozy cottage single wide.

This trailer is precious: it has character. But, it also some beauty spots. It’s been well-loved but not always loved well, ya know? 

At any rate, the screen door has seen its better days: it now spends its life begging for mercy from the country winds. 

Every time it slams, it loses a little bit of sanity…and structural integrity. 

As of right now, the whole bottom of the door is missing, so it looks like we made a doggie door, even though we lack a doggie. 

As I woke up to the snow Wednesday morning, I tried to peek outside. The front door is living its best life, but bless that screen door, all that’s left is a bit of glass and the remnants of a frame. 

I tried to push it open, and though the top of the door complied, the bottom part stayed put. 

I realized I was about to go flying over the railing and be impaled by an old faux metal screen door. 

And I can’t tell you when I last had a tetanus shot.

Thus, I was left laying on the floor, taking pictures of the front yard through the doggie door. 

My pictures look very perspective-y (sp.?) and artistic, but I beg you to know that this choice was necessary, rather than aesthetically inclined. 

I am envious of children’s joints.

How can a child fall so violently and yet still get back up just fine?

On Wednesday, Zayden and his very best friend were out enjoying the snow: they rode on a VERY safe piece of plywood that Poppy pulled behind the Ranger. 

Pip was the paparazzi, following them around with a phone and wrangling Buddy (who was living his goodest-snow-dog-life).

They rode and giggled, giggled and rode: the front of the plywood caught every bit of the snow, thus mounding it up and rendering the boys invisible from the Ranger.

At one point, the boys were standing up on the piece of plywood. They’d then fall off, do a split, roll a few meters, and snap their legs clean off.

Even after all that? They were fine- great, even. 

They were no worse for wear. 

My knee almost dislocated just watching it, and my ankle left the situation quivering, begging my brain not to force us onto that homemade sled. 

Rotten kids: they can’t even fully appreciate those working ligaments and joints. 

Taking one wrong step on ice might be the most heart-in-the-throat feeling of all.

We all, for the most part, were pretty careful on the ice, I think. 

However, there were a few times when I would get a little too ambitious in my giddy up. Inevitably, I would slip momentarily on the ice. 

In these moments, my whole body would tense up. 

My stomach? It felt like it’d moved into a new zip code.

There is little as terrifying and abrupt as ALMOST slipping on the ice. 

I did pretty good with taking it easy, walking carefully, if you will. But there were some close calls. 

Once was in town. I have to think the traffic passing by had to feel my terror. 

My children brought in snow for bonus points. 

I (jokingly, I might add) told my first period on Tuesday that, if they were able to bring in some of the snow and keep it frozen until we came back to school, I would give them five bonus points. 

Dangnabbit, these kids can’t remember to put a period at the end of a sentence, but on Friday, they DID remember to bring in their still-frozen snow. 

One of the kids brought it in a gallon-sized baggie, and the other transported his in a plastic water bottle. 

The one with the water bottle? 

I looked over during our reading day on Friday, and he had CHEWED OFF the entire top part of the bottle and was drinking the slushy ice. 

I hate to say it, but I was not surprised. After eight years of these antics, there’s no wonder why I am the way I am. 

Snow Days are good home-cooking days. 

A weekday where both Trey and I are home does not happen often. 

The only time we ever miss work together is either for vacations out of town or doctor’s appointments with our functional medicine fairy godmother. 

Lo and behold, though, on Wednesday, we were both at the sinigle wide. We was so excited that, around 10:30, we began negotiations for breakfast. 

I was so pumped up: I never cook breakfast food for actual breakfast (though we are suckers for breakfast for dinner).

The morning lineup was cinnamon toast, waffles, and some cheesy sausage-eggs. 

Again, I cannot stress how odd this was- how different of a morning this is. Normally- duh, Emmie- we are at work. 

The Saturday mornings are consumed with pickleball (who even has time to eat breakfast when there is pickling to do?).

Sunday mornings are for church (and if you have seen our sprints into the fellowship hall, you can imagine that we don’t have time for a fancy sit down breakfast).

Trey was on work calls in the morning, and I was doing some very professional TV watching. 

After all the daytime activities, we finally settled down in the evening, and I got a wild hair to cook some spaghetti. 

We aren’t even really spaghetti/ pasta people, but largely, we had the ingredients for it. What we didn’t have, we ran to get from Wal-Mart (closed), Dollar General (closed), and finally landed at Food Depot (OPEN…WHAT).

There, we got the remaining supplies, and got some fruits for apple cider in the crockpot. 

Sidenote: Do we have a new hometown hero here?! Is Food Depot the new go-to for all of our grocery needs? 

Has it become the most reliable marketplace in all of the sprawling land of Cochran?!

On the first thought line, though: that spaghetti may have been the best dish I’ve made in a while. 

The grand cooking foray was not without its mishaps. 

The morning really began with an unpleasant bang as I decided I would splurge a little bit on my coffee. I’ve gotten to where I drink it black (shout out to Black Rifle Coffee), and that’s my normal now. 

However, I decided that since this snow day was a special one, I would treat it like it was a holiday. 

I splashed a little bit of milk in my coffee, only to take a sip and realize that my morning cup tasted like sour cream. 

Darn milk. 

It was in date! And yet! 

I messed up on one of the TWO things I had to remember to have stocked in the house: thank goodness we had bread. 

You can revoke my Southern card with my lack of preparation.

What a merry singlewide snow day!

There have been multiple times recently when we’ve had slower-paced days: after all of the holiday travel, I’ve enjoyed that. 

Our snow stint was a holiday without any extra expectations or pressure. 

We loved it. 

Was it a nice change in pace? Absolutely. 

Would I want it all the time? As one who professes both proudly and regularly her love for 98 degree weather, no, thank you. 

But, all the same, it was a great change-up. 

THANK YOU JESUS FOR THE SNOW.