Mo Fo No No Na Na Ha Ha Ho Ho Sue's Writing Challenge

I'm challenging myself, so writer friends, don't freak out. I haven't been writing. I could go into a whole litany of excuses but I will spare you.

The dog and I haven't been going on our morning walks for about 2 weeks now. I blame myself. I blamed the holidays, the rainy weather and my sinuses. Today we marched out the door.
Into the snow and ill equipped. It's just a light snow here in Northeast, Ohio, you can still see the grass poking through. So I wore my regular shoes. I found out they have no traction whatsoever. I pulled some muscles. Also, I inadvertently impaired my hearing and peripheral vision.
You have to bundle up when walking in the snow or you'll freeze your ass off. And speaking of asses. That homeless man on The Day After Tomorrow was right when he said to stuff your clothes with newspaper and plastic bags to keep warm. When the dog pooped and I took the plastic bag out of my back pocket, my right ass cheek felt an instant chill.
I also had a hood on, then wrapped a scarf around my neck, high enough to cover my mouth and flipped up my collar. This resulted in muffled hearing and the peripheral vision problem. So when a woman that lives in one of the condos behind my house said,
"Good morning."
My response was,
"Ahhhh!"
Didn't see her, didn't hear her coming. Didn't see the squirrels until the dog started to run after them, which caused me to slip because my shoes, not boots, had no traction.
I'll be going through my closet this afternoon looking for boots that don't leak, don't make my socks bunch up and of course, traction. Because the dog and I will be marching out the door tomorrow morning and the rest of the weeks to come. Unless it's really windy, below 20°, or raining.

My missing blue gloves

With my big, heavy leather jacket, scarf wrapped around my neck five times, I reached inside my pockets for my blue gloves. Empty pockets? I always put my gloves away. But last night when we got home, the husband and I had our arms full as we trekked into the house.
I had dishes to wash, things on my mind (I never really function well when I'm deep in thought ), wrestling with a time table because I had TV shows to watch and a dog that wanted out every 10 minutes. My blue gloves got shoved in the back of my brain that I have a hard time accessing.
So this afternoon when I was ready to face 7 degrees because I had stuff to do I could not remember where those gloves were. The last time I remembered seeing them they were in my lap in the car that Boy #3 had taken to work. My light jacket had lighter gloves and I put those on and ventured out into the arctic tundra.
Now the lighter gloves are those mitten/gloves. My fingers stick out just below the first knuckle unless I flip over the half mitten. They are cool but impractical when cleaning 3 inches of snow off a car because your pinkie finger always manages to pop out of the makeshift mitten. Frost bite was immanent. I made a mental note to inquire about my blue gloves when Boy #3 got home.
Boy #1 has been staying with us during this cold winter blast because he is closer to work. The husband was also out today. When #3 got home I asked him if my blue gloves were in the car. Here is the conversation that followed:

Boy #3: No, they're not in the car they're on the side of the driveway.
The Husband: Are those the ones you were looking for earlier? I was wondering why they were in the driveway.
Boy #1: Blue gloves? Yeah I saw them this morning in the driveway.
Boy# 3: Do you want me to go get them?

The rest, of the conversation came from me which I shouldn't repeat.
But, WTF?

Here's how it happened.....the phenomenon

It all started in the garage. The husband and Boy #3 were cleaning in there. Yes I know, cleaning the garage, it's one of those jobs that is more like a punishment. But they were just cleaning it for the hell of it. That's what they tell me anyway. I know it's because they can't find stuff when they are reconstructing my house.
So you can imagine my surprise when I saw a bag of rock salt next to the front door. And when I took a look see in the garage I saw the sn, sn....I can't say it, shovels neatly stacked in the front corner. Three of them, one for each kid, that's how it works, don't let anyone tell you different.
In addition to this all of my sweaters are out of the cedar chest, washed, dried and hanging in my closet. We are prepared. This is very scary for our house full of procrastinators.
Usually the first time the steps are iced over this conversation ensues:
"Did we have any rock salt left over from last year?"
"Can't remember."
"Have you seen any half filled bags of rock salt down there?"
"Don't think so."
"Well the next time one of us is out we need to pick up a bag."
"K."
"Are you listening to me?"
"Huh?"
The first time the driveway needs to be shoveled this is the conversation I have with the shovelers, which has dwindled down to one this year:
"Are the shovels in the shed?"
"Can't we just buy a sn.....?"
"Shovels. Where are they?"
"I don't know."
"You have to find them and start shoveling. I'd help but I have a bad back. And when your father and I made a list of the Pros and Cons of having children, shoveling was like third on the list of Pros. Don't make me regret our decision, get out there."
And when it gets cold, I put off dragging my sweaters out of the cedar chest. So I wear my gray hoodie every single day of the week, people start to talk. The phenomenon is that we are, as far as we are concerned, prepared for the winter season. The only explanation for this is that we will have a very light winter. Your welcome Northeast Ohioans.
There is another plausible scenario and that is that while watching the squirrels scoop up and hide a bumper crop of acorns, more than I can ever remember falling in our yard, they, the squirrels, have sent us telepathic winter warnings while running back and forth across our roof.
Time will tell.

Sell crazy someplace else, we're all stocked up here

And the snow continues to fall, documented information of the great snowfall of December, 2010 :

I took two vacation days on Dec. 6th and 7th to hang out with mother, you know, Christmas shop and to do lunch. Instead the snow began to fall Sunday and has not stopped. Mother and I, via a telephone conversation decided Monday to stay home, off the treacherous roads. Tuesday our AM conversation consisted of a little bit of swearing, she's the one that taught me how to swear but will deny it, bad mouthing Mother Nature and a general pissy attitude where we decided to try again Saturday.

"Saturday?" She said, "Why don't you just quit that job?"

"Then you'd have to pay for lunch mom."

"Oh, let's try Saturday then."

I stayed in the house all day Monday and all day Tuesday. So I feel I have a jump on cabin fever. See, I'm going to go crazy first. Being cooped up in the house for long periods of time seems appealing to you at first. You can get stuff done like, catch up on all the sitcoms you recorded over the fall and never got around to watching. Eat ice cream for lunch. Stay in your jammies all day or at least late in the day and just hurry up and get dressed before anyone gets home from work, that way the won't suspect you are on you way to going off the deep end sooner than usual. The trick is to keep crazy to yourself as long as possible, wait for everyone to catch up to you, because they will. It's a natural transition from our carefree 2, maybe 3 weeks of summer in Northeast, Ohio to Almost Winter, Winter and Still Winter. Once we all catch up to the same kind of crazy, we can start to climb the walls, throw on a pair of boots while still in our bathrobes to get the mail, flip off the snow plow that sends snow from the street back into your driveway you just got done shoveling, stop caring whether our hats, gloves and scarves match, hell as long as you have a left and right glove it really doesn't matter what color they are does it? Yeah we have some good times coming our way baby. Northeast, Ohio weather, yeah wonderful, really.

See If You Can Detect The Note Of Sarcasm

How wonderful it was to wake up to an inch, and climbing, of fresh fallen snow this morning. After enjoying a week of a clear driveway, we can now start shoveling again. Years of snow removal experience has taught us a few tricks, start the car 10 minutes before work so the windows defrost, this way you jump in, roll down the windows and the excess snow falls off. But not this morning, the window were frozen shut. So for extra fun I got to scrap and scrap, while the snow blew down sideways. As the snow swirled around me I wondered just why I spent all that time on my hair. I was also treated to popping the SUV into 4 wheel drive to avoid sliding into a ditch, it was a exciting drive into work. Upon my arrival, I navigated my way through the parking lot carrying extra shoes, lunch, purse and coffee without peripheral vision, because I got to wear my heavy jacket with the big hood again.
Mother Nature, you ignorant slut.

Bring It On Baby!

Here comes the snow and I say bring it on baby! I live in Northeast Ohio, it snows plenty here. Whether you complain, pray or cry, the snow is coming and it's staying until March. Last year we had more snow than we had in a long time. While Boy #2, Boy #3 and I were shoveling about two feet of the shh .... stuff last winter I asked them if they ever remember having this much snow before.

In unison, "No."

Then what came out of my mouth next was the sound of somebodies grandmother, "I remember back in '76 or no was it '77 ....... we had so much snow we had a whole week off of school."

Let it snow, I've seen it all and I'm ready. Besides, snow is cleaner than rain. Once that ground freezes I don't have to clean mud off the dogs paws.

Winter Can Proceed

Winter can proceed, I found my scarves and gloves. I was starting to worry. Sometimes I get a great idea, but forget how great it was months later. I put everyone's gloves, hats, mittens and scarves in a big box in the downstairs closet, all together, everyone's. So instead of everyone trying to find their own gloves, they all came to me with accusatory looks of disbelief. "We had a system! We lost our own gloves. What were you thinking?" Yeah, it was all part of my evil plan to have them all get frostbite on their fingers, so I would have to do everything around here. Whew, glad I found that box.