I feel kind of goofy getting all excited about yet another snow day and county school cancellation when my kids aren't in school. You see, when school in Chesterfield County (yes, the Chesterfield of the cigarettes--I think that every time I read the word or write it) is canceled, so are our ancillary activities. And when ancillary activities are canceled, I get a little bit of a breather. I'm liking this.

Today was a portent of things to come. I don't know what to do when my kids are busy somewhere else, and they were all busy all day long. I had no one to play with. I updated Facebook too much. I read one page of a depressing novel about a woman's ineffable grief in being the mother of a micropreemie. I played a little bit of skeeball. I ate a lot of gf brownies and coffee cake. I went on a quick grocery run because my gluten-eating family members are on a peanut butter sandwich kick and we also ate all of the eggs in our house. I was in denial that my unprepared children (I was out of town from Friday afternoon-Sunday afternoon, then we were disrupted by a snow day and kids out of school) had Latin tutoring today. I located them--and the Latin tutor's brother--in a garage on another street. I did decide that I should assume we were still on for trumpet, though I had already spaced on flute. Trumpet was sort of a bad idea, since I got stuck on the instructor's street and wondered if my non-tractionary minivan was going to leave me high and dry and I was going to have to walk four miles home...uphill in the snow.

And I can hear a stuck car spinning its wheels out on my street right now while I write this.

The roads are not good. I'm glad they're not good. And some people probably think they are good, and they do in fact look pretty good right in front of my house, but we must have some direct sun exposure, or something, since they get really bad right after you get past the house next door. Even Woodlake Village Parkway, the main road in my neighborhood, is not perfect by any means. There is a big white patch of ice right in front of Woolridge Elementary School and all across the main intersection near the swim and racquet club, where I went sliding and was glad that there were no cars coming from any distance. Tomorrow it is supposed to be rainy/snowy/sleety/icy again, which quite frankly, I welcome. I really, really like having an extended break from craziness with Little Prince week looming so close. Preschool also won't happen tomorrow, but I'm kind of okay with that, since last week there was a stomach virus going around, and any distance we get from that is probably better. Give it time to die out. As much as we love our activities, having a week off of art class and math class and dance classes isn't a disaster.

Tomorrow my poor children must return to doing some schoolwork. Today they managed to do a little bit of Latin review (we use the Suzuki Latin method wherein they read every single passage and every vocabulary word from every single lesson we have covered so far, to the point where they can practically do lessons 1-3 in their sleep and lessons 4 and 5 with little effort). But tomorrow they must do some writing, some math, some grammar, some vocabulary, and we must read some history. It doesn't have to take forever, but the endless snowday feel does need some boundaries. Tonight all three older kids are at sleepovers, and last night Frances had a friend sleeping over at our house (normally I'm not a fan of two-day-in-a-row sleepovers). They will probably all need some rest by tomorrow.

And so I am off to play Ticket to Ride with Kerry, who is a little less than enthusiastic, especially at this hour.