Unprepared

This morning I awoke to a soft knock on my bedroom door.

At least that's what Rachel says.

Usually I wake up between 5:30 and 6:30 a.m. all by myself, every day of the week, like it or not. But this morning I snapped awake, glanced at the clock—7:20—and realized it was time to take Rachel to school. I marveled that I'd slept so late, while simultaneously realizing that I had to hurry and get out of bed, and wondering why Rachel hadn't tried to wake me up.

Clothes, or pajamas?

I opted for pajamas, as I usually do for the drive to school. Stumble down the stairs and into the kitchen. Slip on my weird, sandal things that are also part of my morning drive attire. Head for the front door and...

my approach to the front door...
Oh, no!

Snow!

I am not ready for this. Not in any way at all, this morning.

Bruce has been reorganizing the garage (he even built a workbench in it).

No parking space inside.
But there's a really nice (and really tall, for some reason)
workbench in the left-hand corner.

This means the cars have been parked outside and now, sure enough, they are covered with snow. I open the driver-side door, toss my purse onto my seat and search for a snow-brush. None. Shut the door and my bare toes are liberally powdered with snow. Aaagh! At least I know that the snow isn't frozen onto the windows...

I am not exactly dressed for a snow day.

I search the other car, opening and closing three doors, showering drifts of snow onto my feet each time, and still don't find a snow-brush. Finally I grab a reusable grocery bag and use that to clear off the snow that's still left on the car. Now I'm unsuccessfully trying not to get my fingers in the snow on the windshield and brushing the icy powder onto my feet. On the upside, when I get into the car it feels relatively toasty.

The roads are wet, but not icy...that's good. But we take the drive to school behind a school bus and at less than five miles an hour the entire way—there must be an accident up ahead somewhere.

A few minutes and less than a mile later: How long is this drive going to take? I am realizing that, in my hurry to get Rachel to school on time (which is probably not going to happen now)
I didn't stop in the bathroom this morning. Well, I'm still trying to rub the sleep from my eyes with my popsicle fingers, so maybe a slow drive isn't so bad.

Finally we pull up in front of the school, having made the five-minute drive in eighteen minutes. We're not the only ones; even though the final bell is going to ring in less than a minute, there's a long line of cars dropping kids off.

I was able to drive home at 30 mph. Although I had intended to go back to bed, I'm thoroughly awake now.

The first snowfall! I was totally not ready for this today. It does make my backyard look better than it has for a few weeks, though.

I never did pull out my garden.
The snow makes it look much better.

And now that I'm home perhaps I could to do as my friend Theresa does and make cinnamon rolls to commemorate the first snow.

Or I could just go back to bed.