Skip to main content

When it snows and blows

 be careful what you wish/pray for.

On Christmas Eve, I was lamenting the lack of snow.

"When it's winter, I'd rather there was snow on the ground," I mused, "instead of this ugly grayness."

Well, there's snow on the ground and plenty of it. In fact, I estimate about 250 inches (though we all know how bad I am at math) and there's more coming down and even more in the forecast.

Looking out, it's kind of pretty. Like a snow globe. As a four-wheeler, I feel though almost trapped inside that snow globe because traversing the snow is difficult and messy in a wheelchair. Imagine pushing a stroller through a sandy beach and you have an inkling about the challenges of propelling my chair through deep snow.

And sometimes, getting the snow off the wheels of the chair is a frustrating task. I towel off the wheels, but they are still a little wet and/or dirty. Imagine coming in from the snow, wiping your boots on a mat but then walking in to the house with those boots still on. They'd surely make a wee bit of a mess on the floors. Now you have an inkling of the additional challenge presented by coming in with a wheelchair from the snow covered walks.

And those are just a couple reasons why being a four-wheeler  in the snowy winter is a challenge.

Comments

It's not a popularity contest, but ...

The summer that wasn't

It's July 30. Summer, right? Wrong!!! In Michigan, we had our summer two weeks ago for about 10 days. Saw a recent post on Facebook that read:"You know you're in Michigan when you wear your bathing suit on Monday and your parka on Tuesday." We sweltered for a week or two and then were chilled again. That's where we are now. Chilling at 70. Weather aside, it no longer feels much like summer. The back-to-school ads, commercials, displays and talk have begun full-force. And I feel like I just got used to having the three-not-so-little Piggins home again and now I have to get them ready for school. Delaney has a little longer, but Michael leaves for Wayne State law in two weeks and Matthew for his sophomore year at DePauw in three.  I get the nest re-feathered and damn these 'baby' birds but they stay for too short a time then fly away. *sigh* Since this is the "glass half full" blog of a pseudo-Pollyanna, I will revert to thinking positively ...

The "I'll Nevers" of growing older

  Years ago as a freelance writer, I submitted an essay entitled "The I'll Nevers of Parenting". It was a list, mostly, of things I had said prior to having children and the crow I was then eating because of the stupidity of the claims. You know little pearls of 'wisdom' that only someone who hasn't experienced the joys of  parenting could utter, like: I will never yell at my child in public or I will never let my child eat dinner in front of the television or my children will never stay up past 9 pm. I yelled at my children (usually when we were both tired and totally irrational!) in public. One time, as we were in the drop off lane at school with a long line of cars behind us, the boys hoped out of the car but Delaney was insisting on something that for the life of me I cannot recall and I was insisting that she get out of the van. We crept along, van door still open, until I got to the end of the line and yelled at the top of my voice, "Delaney get the...

The meaning of success and how

I sat down to write today about being cast/boot free. It is a joy to be back to my 'normal' state of mobility - which is to say that I stumble and totter like a drunken sailor but at least now I'm not wearing a big black boot. Ahoy matey! But instead, I came across the above quote and being easily distracted, I began to think about it instead. (Heck, I'm tired of the damn cast and don't want to waste anymore time thinking or writing about it anyway.) It's a quote my Aunt Bonnie first introduced me too when I graduated from high school and it's come on my radar many times since then, but today for some reason it has given me pause. I laugh often, to be sure. I'm like the uncle in Mary Poppins - I love to laugh. I surround myself with people that make me smile and laugh and am grateful for a husband that still knows how to make me laugh. I'm not to sure about winning the respect of intelligent people, though. I tend to think out of the box and...