Bad Weather vs Bad Clothes

"Snow! Mommy there's snow!"

This morning K rushed me to the window to see that we had indeed gotten a good half inch of the white stuff.  Nothing, of course, compared to their old friends and neighbor's snow falls back in Tennessee and North Carolina, but you take what you can get when you are a kid.

Breakfast and morning chores were completed in a hurry to make as much time for snow play as possible.  Unfortunately for them, that just meant a few shoddy snowballs tossed at their mum.  (Wow, I just unintentionally typed "mum" instead of "mom."  I think I will leave it there as a milestone of sorts.)

I pulled them past the park and denied their requests to go play as we walked to the car.

After all, school was not closed due to a dusting.

By the time we'd dropped off J at school, big fluffy flakes had started falling.  

The girls squealed with joy in the back seat as we made our way to K's school a couple miles away.

Right up to the moment she walked onto school grounds, K held out hope that school would be cancelled.  I kissed her disappointed little face and watched as she stomped the snow off her shoes and slowly walked into the building.

She would soon understand why classes weren't cancelled; the snow didn't last long.  Within an hour we were back to gray skies and wet pavement.  

We've had wet pavement for a couple months straight now, with a few nice blue sky days scattered in.

Last summer locals warned us about the Winter damp, but we didn't get it.  

We do now.

In the end, it doesn't matter what the weather is because life still has to go on.

As the old Scandinavian saying goes: "There is no bad weather, only bad clothes.”

I think of this positive, persevering attitude every morning when Grace predictably exclaims "It's a pretty day!"  

Indeed it is, Gracie.  Not too cold and not too rainy.  A "pretty day" indeed. :)

Because we don't have parking at our house and I drive the kids to and from school, I have complained a time or two (or twenty) about the walk back and forth to the car.  It's not that I hate it, I've just always felt like it was a boring, nagging task.  Like laundry.  But 2-3 times a day, 5 days a week.

If I weren't walking to my car, I might not have noticed this beautifully British (albeit gray) view, complete with church spire on the horizon.

Or moss on an old stone fence with yellow leaves creeping over the top.

I might not have realized just how great age 8 is when paired with pigtails and scooters.

Or how lovely the front doors of the homes down the street are.  

I imagine these two as young women, say a blonde and a brunette, each with their own charming style.

"Hey Greenie, wanna hang?"

That's just a sad little door joke for you...

And these two, well they have a more complicated relationship.

They are obviously the same age, but in much different places in life at the moment.

One looks posh and clean, the other a bit more weathered.  It doesn't actually look bad to me.  

It's obvious the owner loves the beauty of plants -- even if they are mostly dead or dormant at the moment. 

But I imagine them as old friends still choosing to share lives together. One just has better clothes.

And besides, like the Scandinavians say, "There is no bad weather, only bad clothes."