Diary of a snow, 1 (hopefully only)

**This got published on HuffPo Comedy!!
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Well, my favorite thing in the world has happened. An epic snow. Truly, I can't imagine anything I'd rather experience.

I love being housebound for days. Playing every game in the house with children who alternate manically between whining and laughing is dreamy. I adore shoveling one pile into another pile right next to the original one like some sort of deranged Sisyphean loon. There are never too many puzzles to complete, and your hips will not fix forever into seated position as you try to conquer your collection.

I can't think of anything I'd rather do than run out of lemons, milk, kindling and sanity- all before 3pm when it is entirely too early to imbibe and all stores are closed and your car is snowed in anyway, so who cares and what would he/she do about it anyway?? #amiright?

It is tremendous to watch your lovingly tended plants be crushed under banks of white death. It feels good to be on live-text with your girlfriends as they implode. It is even more fun to pay for both school and after-school activities and then watch your kids enjoy 10% of all that. My sides are aching I'm laughing so hard. Beyond question, this is prime living. 

"I'm alive!"

Truly, winter is idyllic. Especially in cities that, each year, appear to experience winter as if they've just discovered something new and potentially dangerous.

• "Can I touch it?"
• "How do I do this thing called snow?"
• "What is driving and functioning in temperatures of 20 degrees? Is life possible?"

Clearly I am being sarcastic. Well, except for the lemons. I despise being without lemons because really, it's like the sun might as well have burned out. 

Being snowed in is like a detox of sorts.

The first 48 hours are miserable. I mean, you NEED a fix. It's horrid. And then you accept that you can't make hot chocolate because listen, there is no more milk. And if your kids go across the street to their snow fort and you cease checking on them because you're enraptured with your New Orleans puzzle? Well, they're fine. 

You start to realize just how great all that senseless shoveling is for your physique, and so you double-time it out there. Because you can. Plus, your cat fancies himself a snow leopard and traverses with spy-like glee the extensive pathways you've dug out for his wimpy canine friend's bathroom needs. And you've eaten chili for three days straight and could use some alone time in the fresh, open air, if you get my drift.

That chicken in the freezer? Girl, it was time to roast that bird anyway. Get busy. It's #notchili. And if you are also supposed to be packing? Get a garbage can and watch out world, because you am gonna tear through this joint like it's your job. Nothing is safe. 

Soon enough, you're gonna find some more lemons and with them the sun, and those goddamn white banks out there are gonna melt. And it's back to school, back to everything. Onward ho!

Diary of a move, 3

Never before having bought one home while simultaneously preparing to sell my old one, I underestimated the stress and money involved. It's a whole lot of both.

Betwixt school holidays and snow days, I've gotten floor, paint and moving estimates, helped T clear out an enormous amount of stuff from our garage, sold some, tossed much and started boxing things we won't need in the next three weeks.

I have lost my appetite and three pounds which is really crimping my style in the kitchen. I drove over a screw and this morning needed a tire patch. Tuition is going up at the boys' school. We are supposed to get an arseload of snow this weekend. I've been itching to write but the well appears dry. 

It's all been a bit intense, and while I know both that there is much to be done in the coming weeks and that I want to enjoy the time we have left in this home, part of me hopes the days whiz by as if in a fairy tale slumber. 

Right now, the kids and T are watching a Myth Busters, and I'm on the couch in the front room watching the snow fall. I'm tired -haven't been sleeping well- and chilly, Percy's back is rising and falling with his even breaths, and the boys have already eaten all the cookies Oliver and I made earlier. 

To my left, through the front room's entry arch into the dining room, I can just see the branches of a sugar maple through a sliver of window. That tree is perhaps what I'll miss most about this house. It and being a two-minute walk to both the kids' pediatrician and CVS.

The maple must be at least sixty years old. It is a stalwart marker of place and time, helping me track seasons and the number of backyard birds and squirrels that visit too. At the same time, it is the steadiest root, largely unchanging when everything else seems to swing madly in flux.

Every year from what appears dead emerge innumerable buds of new life. Those leaf out in the spring and grow and thicken during the summer and early fall, ultimately forming a fluorescent yellow canopy that covers much of our yard. Through it, the sun's rays filter golden; it's hard to think of anything that looks more alive than our sugar maple in the peak of autumn.

After a few glorious weeks, the awning folds in for the season, blanketing the yard with a technicolor tarp. This is good news for those who enjoy raking, and a terrible to-do for those who don't. 

I'll miss leaf piles into which my kids throw themselves with joyful, youthful abandon, and the fine exercise it is to rake countless bags of leaves when they're done. I'll miss the beauty of that tree and the home it provides for so many little creatures. I'll miss laying under its boughs on cool spring nights, a glass of rosé in hand.

Even with this awareness and knowledge, I am impatient. Eager to move onward and out. Eager to leave some of the stress of the process behind. Eager to make a new house a home. 

Diary of a move, 2

You will never guess what I found yesterday while packing!

Him: 

Oh my flipping god  

Sweet baby Jesus in the heavens, this man is on fire. He is impossibly sexy, elegant, rugged, intelligent, gentle and handsome. I could die.

The boys had yesterday and today off of school. I am going to be honest in telling you that I am quite keen on their returning tomorrow.

For starters, they have demanded a roaring fire in the hearth for pretty much the entirety of this homestay. I like a nice fire, and it's exceedingly cold here in DC, but I am A) nearly out of kindling and not terribly interested in foraging for more in single-digit temps when most everything is frozen to the ground, and B) rather sick of their burning small effigies, Sith plane replicas, and all other "but it's just paper and wood, Mom!" creations in my living room. It's morbid and not relaxing.

Today, for example, Oliver freaked out and rescinded an offer to the fire. "Mom, I want that one back. PLEASE!" Which meant fishing a nearly-aflame masterpiece from atop its pyre and dousing it with ash before any ruin commenced. Not relaxing, people.

Secondly, we have played approximately 712 games of Spot it! which is a delightful game (that I frequently win, heh!) but one whose art director seems to have taken one seriously wrong turn.

When you look at this disk, what do you see?

I see a clock, moon, man, eye, balloon, taxi, tree, and black-eyed tampon with a ball and chain.

Why is the tampon a prisoner? Why has she been fighting and yet continues to smile? Why is she on a children's game? 

I have been asking myself these vexing questions all day instead of packing. I do not yet have an answer. I have only packed one box.

Until this move is a wrap, I have let T know that we will be having extremely simplistic dinners. Fortunately, as long as whatever I put in front of him is flavorful, not mustard or turnip greens, and includes meat at least five days out of seven, he does not care.

Tonight? Bucatini with spicy tomato sauce and speck. Bellissima!

Good night, peeps!