Sunday, February 04, 2007

Just a little flake here and there...

On Wednesday the television weathercasters were forecasting snow in epic proportions. (Well, okay, epic for this part of the country means about 2", but still...) And not only snow, but ice, sleet, freezing rain, the entire bag of Mother Nature's tricks. The kids at school that day were just besides themselves with glee because, with a 100% forecast (as per the National Weather Service website), they just knew we wouldn't have school on Thursday. The teachers were pretty gleeful as well because this time of year a snow day really comes in handy.

So we get up on Thursday, eagerly look outside and see...a dusting. Barely.

Counties left and right and north and south of us close for the day but we, sitting in the middle of a weird meterological pocket of nothing, didn't.

The kids came in, scowled, slumped in their seats and whined and whimpered all day about the Snow Day That Wasn't. We did, however, have about 11% absent that day, so it seemed a bit surreal. It's really strange when you're used to a class of 25 and only about 15 show up. The flu and strep has been hitting the area pretty hard and some of the school districts around us have actually closed for illness. We've had kids out sick earlier in the week, come back too early, then out again. The sounds of sniffling and coughing are fairly pronounced in the classroom.

So Thursday rolls by and the weather for Friday predicts a slight chance of flurries and maybe a snow shower or two. Definitely nothing to get excited about. The kids aren't even hoping for a snow day. Why bother?

Friday morning I get up at 4:40 am, look outside and it's white! And still snowing! And the news verifies that yes, we're actually closed for the day!

Mrs. Math calls me to make sure that I knew we were closed and mentions that she wasn't expecting this at all, so she didn't bring anything home with her. Neither did I. I wasn't expecting it either. Probably the first three day weekend I've had where I didn't bring work home. Now that's surreal.

3 comments:

Mrs. T said...

Yay for you! I hope you spent the day reading, cozying up in front of the tv, watching some dreamy old movie and drinking hot coffee.
Am sooo jealous- could use one of those right about now.

Princess Lionhead said...

You lucky duck!! We've had a couple of days where Mother Nature has downright teased us (snowing like crazy and then it's gone in a flash), but no Snow Days here yet. I predict we'll have one in April. Or maybe May. We have crazy weather like you Southerners...

CaliforniaTeacherGuy said...

Caught at home with no work to do--how good is that? Good enough to rejoice, I'd say!

However, by now you're probably back in your classroom. I hope the memory of Snow Day sustains you for the rest of the week. Good memories can do that, you know.

:-)