Snow Days

The more it snows ~~
tiddely pom,
The more it goes ~~
tiddely pom,
The more it goes ~~
tiddely pom
On snowing ~~

And nobody knows~~
tiddely pom ,
How cold my toes ~~
tiddely pom,
Are growing.

-A.A. Milne

It's been snowing off and on in Seattle since Saturday. This is a rare and wondrous event in our area, and hills, temps, urban tree canopy, and little plowing make for a city-wide snow holiday when it snows this much for this long. Schools have been closed since Tuesday. Ice storms had Sea-Tac airport grounded yesterday, trees falling, and hundreds of thousands of people without power. It's a big deal around here.

This morning a warm front and rain are slowly melting our deep freeze, but we've been holed up at our house all week and it's been so much fun.


Tuesday afternoon, Matt, the eminent bread-maker in our family, made a Peter Reinhart recipe for cinnamon rolls. He's become so attached to "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day," that he nearly lost faith, but he pulled through in the end.


We were all glad he did--especially Avonlea, who woke up on Wednesday morning and promptly took over my plate of cinnamon roll, declaring: "Avi's!" I think she mostly liked the frosting.


Matt's a brave Minnesota-bred boy, and he took Avonlea down the hill to Nonny and Bob's (Avo's names for them these days) for some play time while I beavered away on my manuscript revisions.



It's been so lovely to have been together in a snowy parentheses for the past five days. I can't help but think of Narnia and the Hundred Acre Wood when the snow casts a spell over our world for a little while. Sometimes cancelling everything in what my friend Jonna called a "forced sabbath," is such a gift. And now, when spring finally comes, I'll feel like we've really had a winter.