A Big Move and a Tiny Focus (For Now)

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Each time we move, I go through a similar process. I think of it very much like a camera lens. Fair warning: this may actually be a terrible analogy since I have no idea about the actual technology of camera functions, but I envision it this way, so work with me. A few months before we leave, my lens starts to close in, bringing a smaller and smaller range of things into focus. During the move, the focus is pretty much down to family, close friends, and the to-do list. After we arrive in our new place, the lens opens slowly, letting in a wider range of experiences and people as we become accustomed to the setting.

Usually, this process would have started in about February, and gotten down to tightest focus about now, two weeks before the movers come. But this move is anything but ordinary. This move started earlier than usual for me, and it may well end later than usual, too. This move is to Havana, Cuba.

As those of you who have read my blog regularly know, I settled into a rhythm of posting every weekday and taking the weekends off soon after starting the blog. I adored this rhythm; it gave me a place to speak my mind, an avenue by which to learn from others, and a growing online community.

But this move requires a higher level of Spanish ability than the “pick it up from your friends” variety that I had cobbled together over the years. So when I had the opportunity to take an intensive Spanish language class, I jumped at it.

Call me crazy, but I honestly didn’t think that full-time school would affect my blogging. Until I started full-time school. My brain worked on overload all day, struggling to stop translating everything from English to Spanish, and just thinking it in Spanish to begin with. By the time class ended every day, I felt as if I’d just done a major workout. I would slump over on the couch when we got home, dragging myself up to make dinner and corral the kiddos toward bed. Some nights I just dropped straight into bed, leaving Honey with the whole evening routine by himself. On those days, by 4 p.m. it felt as if my word level for the day had gone far past the “Used Up” point and had dropped to dangerously low levels like, “Unable to Process Sound.”

Which, by the way, does not go over big with kiddos who want to talk to Mommy and have her respond. Coherently. (My kids are so demanding.)

So the blogging routine also fell by the wayside, and I gave myself a terribly hard time about that – in two languages. I don’t spend a lot of time on guilt, since I feel that guilt is the most useless emotion. Remorse is useful because it moves you to action, but guilt just simmers, making everyone feel worse. But in this case, I felt guilty. Guilty of not giving my all to my family. Guilty of not staying regular in my blogging, which I love. Guilty for not spending much time outside of school hours on homework. I felt like I dropped every ball I tried to juggle, and worse, that I needed to learn how to say “juggle” in Spanish even though that idiom probably doesn’t translate! (For those of you who wondered, yes, I looked it up: “hacer malabares,” if you’re literally juggling, or “balancear las demandas,” if you’re juggling tasks.)

School ended, with a painful lesson in needing to understand the system thoroughly before you take the exam, but also with an increased confidence in my Spanish-speaking abilities. And yet, I haven’t returned to my regular blogging schedule.

The main reason is that the lens has been closing; I can feel it doing so almost against my will. I’m not seeing as many people. Our church attendance has decreased. Extra activities fall by the wayside. And the blog has lain fallow.

But I have missed writing, and the interaction with a wide range of readers, from those of you who I’ve known my whole life to those of you who I’ve never met face-to-face. I miss logging in, posting, and seeing your comments, or “likes,” or private messages responding to what I’ve said.

The movers come in two weeks; much remains to be done, and goodbyes must be said, and we’ll take a trip to our beloved Texas before we depart for Cuba in June. So I can’t promise you that I’ll post any more regularly than I have done in the last few months, but I will be back. The lens will open back up, life will resume, and I’ll write about it.

In the meantime, thank you for checking in here. Thanks for your messages of support over the past few months. And thank you for caring to read the words I put online. Y’all have given me a great deal by showing up here, and I appreciate you.

Hasta pronto, amigos.

 

 

The True Story of My Sordid Bible-Study Past, or How I View Church Conflict (Part 1)

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Did I ever tell y’all about the time I was kicked out of Bible study?

It’s true. I’ve been a Bible-study reject for years!

Let me back up just a bit. When we move somewhere new, one of the first things I do is look for a church. When you only have a couple of years in a place, you need to plug in quickly, and attending to our spiritual lives helps me do that.

Sometimes the search is easy: when there’s only one English-speaking option, voilà! Our new church home! Other times, you have to visit a little more to find one that will work.

When we moved to Spain, we had more going on than our typical “we’re moving to a new place” upheaval. My sister Janet had died unexpectedly in June, leaving our whole family in shock and grief all summer. When we left for Madrid in August, I knew that finding a new support group would help immensely and be harder to find in my tender condition.

Things started out on a positive note. Though we would have to drive 30 minutes into the city each week to find an English-speaking congregation, the first one we tried seemed like a good fit. And in the bulletin, the clincher: an announcement for the upcoming fall women’s Bible study! Written by a teacher I enjoyed! I signed up. We started attending the church every week.

The study began on a weekday morning, just at the right time that I could make it after dropping Einstein off at school. They had childcare available for Blossom. About seven of us gathered there each week. The leader, an American in her 60′s, had retired there after years of working in Madrid. So far, so good. I even invited a new friend from the Embassy to join us, and she did.

Then October came. Our household goods arrived, and were delivered on a Bible study day. I missed one meeting. The following week, sick kiddos kept me at home. I kept doing my homework, eager to go back. My friend decided not to drive all the way into the city every week, which I understood. I didn’t hear from the group leader, but I didn’t think anything of it in the hubbub of those couple of weeks.

When I returned to the group the following week, we all sat down at the large table with our snacks and coffee, chit-chatting and opening our books and Bibles. Our leader opened in prayer, and we began the discussion of that week’s homework.

A few minutes into the discussion, having listened to several answers, I began to speak, when the leader interrupted me.

“You know, Jenn, I think you might be more comfortable continuing this study at home.”

What?

“I think you might be more comfortable if you did this study from your home.”

“Oh,” I said, “I’m sorry. I know I’ve missed a couple of weeks, but it was because of our furniture arriving and the kids being sick. I’m back now, good to go.”

“No,” she said. “I think it’s best if you continue from home, maybe with your friend.”

That’s when it dawned on me. She was kicking me out of Bible study! No one else said a word. To this day, I don’t know if the other women knew she had planned that or not. I made a move to close my book and leave, and she said, “You can stay today,” and, unbelievably, I did, but I sat silent for the rest of the hour and left quickly.

Now, the funny part is that after I got through that awkward hour, I found this whole thing absolutely hilarious. I got kicked out! Of Bible study! And not one of those Bible studies with a strict attendance policy, either. This was a group of seven women! How can you be that particular when your group isn’t even in double-digit attendance yet? How can you kick people out when your whole basis for having the group is to encourage their spiritual growth? And for attendance? I mean, c’mon. That’s small potatoes. Kick me out for something worth it, like heresy.

I wore it like a badge of honor, frankly. I couldn’t believe it!

And I did make it work. My friend who didn’t want to drive in liked the idea of doing it in our neighborhood, and we found one more woman to join us. A friend in the States even checked the video series out of her church library for us to use. (This, actually, improved our group experience over the church’s group, who did not have the videos.)

But the funniest part to me was that the group leader called me the next week to see if I had followed up on her suggestion. When I told her that yes, actually, I had, she added our group of three to her attendance roll for the week, and called me faithfully each week after that to check our numbers! Not once did she ask anything deeper than how many people had attended.

I got such a kick out of the whole situation that I didn’t have the heart to ask her to stop calling me with such an offensive request.

Because, y’all, my wounded heart needed to find something funny in the topsy-turvy world of having just lost my sister, and thankfully, this felt so outrageous that it became surreal and over-the-top slapstick funny. The leader also invariably called during dinner, which helped make it even more inconvenient and hilarious to me.

However.

I’m never one to walk away when I’m offended, especially within the church. I am truly difficult to offend, and so if someone manages to do so, I like to talk it out.

Actually, I like to communicate straightforwardly from the get-go, which is why I always schedule a meeting with the minister/pastor/rector at each new church and tell him (so far, it’s always been a him) about our family and a little about our faith journey.

So I called the minister of the church, who I’d already met with, and explained the situation. He was horrified. I hastened to explain that it had been so bad it actually got funny, and that I wasn’t walking away from church, or more importantly, Christ, because of it. I did want him to know, though, because I could easily see how a similar situation could hurt someone else.

It could have left me feeling humiliated. Angry. Defensive. Misunderstood. Mistreated. Rejected. Alone.

That is why I chose to speak up: out of empathy for how the same actions could negatively impact the body of Christ right there in the congregation I was a part of. Out of a desire to build us all up.

A more personal motivation – revenge, need for my reputation to be “cleared,” or simple self-righteousness – would have been easy to justify. I did my best to avoid those motivations, and specifically asked the pastor not to “fire” the leader over this incident. He found a diplomatic solution, installing a co-leader who got along well with the leader but also committed to an inclusive attendance policy. As for my little group, we continued meeting in our neighborhood, eventually growing to a group of eight.

When the church works together, I believe we can find solutions that help everyone. While I may not have been fully “reconciled” to the group leader in the sense of rejoining the group, neither did we have any lingering resentment between us, and to me, that counted as a win.

The only thing I regret? We never followed up on our  jovial threat to have custom leather biker jackets made with “Bible Study Blackballs” on the back.

That would have completed the story.

Your turn: Have you taken part in any Christian conflict that left you feeling pleased with the way you handled it? Have you seen someone else’s method of conflict resolution work well in a Christian setting? Do you feel hopeful about finding workable compromises when you find yourself in conflict with other Christians?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spring Break With a Friend

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She’s here. This is the friend who emerged from the crowd I found myself in when we lived in Honduras, the one who became a lifelong friend. How? Well, she says I won her heart when they put me, the token non-missionary of the group, in charge of a women’s weekend away and I suggested that we do a silent retreat. (The silence that fell in response to my suggestion was answer enough. We did a talking retreat.) I loved her because she always journeyed in with me when I dug deeper with words, when I tried to find out more about what the Hebrew or Greek really meant to say.  Plus, she laughed instead of doing a huge double-take with a shocked, pained expression when I accidentally outed myself politically one year on Election Day as, um, not a conservative.

Now she’s here, with her family, and we get to spend Spring Break together. This, to me, is a tiny prelude of Heaven, where I have already put in a request with the Lord to put my house next door to hers. I trust, of course, that in Heaven, we have more than two sides to a house, because I’m planning to live next door to three people so far and I’m holding a couple of spaces open in my mind for future best friends to move into our Heavenly neighborhood.

Always we have worked out the problems each of us face with shared verses, shared books, laughter, listening ears. We are friends because we love Jesus, books, the beach, and wine that falls somewhere between “buy it by the box” and “if you have to ask, you can’t afford it.” (But way closer to the box than the asking.) I learned how to sit in the ashes with someone from her. Both of us have had ashes that needed to be sat in. And yet we have found the laughter in the midst of the ashes, too.

Her oldest boy made our foreign exchange student feel less foreign, and so welcome, for a time this last summer. Her middle son ate salsa with Einstein when they were tiny boys, and now Ladybug is that age, and Ladybug is entranced with this wonderful boy who keeps being nice to her. My friend’s youngest son entered my life as a whispered confidence way back when, and I think I clapped when she told me about him, or started to clap and stopped when I realized he was still a secret. Anyway, he’s a thrill to me every time I see him.

Last night we sat together with our husbands, eating chili and sipping wine and sharing stories and laughter. Their questions make Honey and me think through things instead of just living life as it comes. Our answers, I think, give them a slightly different perspective than they get at home. Iron sharpens iron, and we don’t even have to get controversial to do it.

She is my hilarious, gentle, artistic, and intro/extroverted friend. I am far richer for knowing her.

 

 

Blog-o-versary! One Year of Blogging

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Happy blogoversary to me! Hang On, Baby, We’re Almost… Somewhere is officially a year old! My first post was on March 17th last year, but I didn’t start telling people I’d written anything until after I had a couple of posts up. So tomorrow will be the anniversary of having told people that I’d put some of my own words out there on the Internet for all (okay, some) to see.

This blog started out as the product of a Lent spent learning how to do the technical aspects of blogging, 15 minutes a day. The computer part of writing a blog worried me; I wasn’t worried about whether the words would come. I hail from a long line of storytellers, and I love spinning a good tale, too. Most of the stories I tell in real life are light, funny, and about my children. As my dearest friend pressured encouraged me to start blogging, I think we both assumed that this, too, would become a lighthearted, kid-story-centric mom blog.

And while there are posts telling the funny stories of life chez LeBow, more often than not, I’ve tended toward the faith-filled (or doubt-facing) aspects of Christian life and ways we can do more, listen more, and learn from one another.

Early on in the blogging, I wanted results. I wanted lots and lots of people to see what I had written, and to engage with me about it in 100% positive comments, and suddenly see my life change as every post went viral.

Ahem.

Quickly, I amended my expectations. First of all, it dawned on me that my words would not enchant everyone else as much as they did me. (Though that fact does still makes me wonder, “What is wrong with you people!?!”) Then the scope of available blogs began to dawn on me. As I sampled blog after blog, the ones that kept catching my eye had three things in common: good writing, kind humor, and generosity of spirit. Topics varied. Adherence (or non-adherence) to religious beliefs varied. Location of the author varied. But all the ones I like approach life with optimism, even if it’s veiled with a good dose of sarcasm. Maybe especially when it’s so veiled.

With sudden blogosphere stardom off the list, I settled in to a pattern of writing on any topic that comes to mind. Our life is hard to pin down as focusing on one thing, or being lived in one place, or having a certain set of interests. I love Jesus and my family and dear friends and books and tea and time by myself. I’m interested in parenting and comedy and fighting injustice and theology and sports and current events and foreign languages. I could spend hours every day online or in a classroom or reading quietly in my room, but more frequently, I find myself tending to household duties, building memories with the kiddos, and wondering how in blazes so many of the tasks I just did can be so easily undone.

So that’s what I write about. Everything I like. Which does not lend itself to a good niche nor to virality, but did change the way I thought about my life. By writing for you, and for myself, I started to examine my views more closely, to feel as if my opinions could make a difference. I began to see myself as a person again, not “just a mom.”

Over the past few months, as language school took up the bulk of my waking hours, I lost the consistency of the early months of blogging. And as we prepare to move, I’m starting to feel the usual urge to let go of some things in order to focus more on what we will keep as we move. Sorting belongings and strengthening friendships before our upcoming move will take priority.

All this to say, the unevenness of the past few months may continue for awhile. I’ll be around a couple of times a week, and I’ll keep writing on everything that comes to mind. As our move gets closer, I’ll be taking a few weeks off to pack, move, spend some time with family and friends in Texas, maybe have a little foot surgery, arrive in Cuba, and unpack. I’ll keep you posted on that.

But one thing more has shifted for me as I approach writing. The desire to be heard is receding, and the desire to listen keeps nudging its way forward. Perhaps I’m entering a season of narrowing my focus as a blogger; maybe this season will be one of intake rather than output. I can’t predict what’s next for us as a family, either; we move frequently, but our upcoming move to Cuba promises change on an as-yet unprecedented scale. I can’t even imagine the stories I’ll have to tell about living in a culture so unlike my own.

In the meantime, in honor of one year of blogging, you may wonder just what kind of present you should give me. Well, I’ll tell you: I’d love a comment on this post with a link to your blog and/or another favorite blog you read. If you weren’t wondering, that’s okay. I’ll never know. You can comment, too!

My present to you is a celebration of some of my favorite bloggers. Some are big-time biggies: speakers, authors, and heavily-followed bloggers. Others have a medium-sized following but have become personal favorites of mine. And a couple are big fish in as-yet-small ponds, and as such have endeared themselves to me both through their writing and through our online contact. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!

Lisa McKay
Thorns and Gold – Tanya Marlow
Gigi Muses
Jen Hatmaker
My Obama Year
Notice the Dirt – Sarah Pardieck
Accidental Devotional – Abby Norman
Paul Soupiset’s Projeqt
Momastery – Glennon Melton
Love Is What You Do – J.R. Goudeau
Mercy Not Sacrifice – Morgan Guyton
Chookooloonks – Karen Walrond
Rage Against the Minivan – Kristen Howerton
Eugene Cho
Jenny Rae Armstrong

Mercy Mondays: Mercy’s Companions

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Mercy Mondays - Jenn LeBow

Welcome to Mercy Mondays! On the second Monday of each month, we discuss mercy together. I am happy to host this link-up, especially this month, as we journey through Lent. I am excited to see what you have to say about mercy in the light of this season in the church year.

Lately, I’ve thought a great deal about justice, and how I’d never really connected it with mercy. It seems that Micah 6:8 is everywhere these days, and in that verse, we read: “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, and to love kindness and mercy, and to humble yourself and walk humbly with your God?” (Amplified Bible)

So this month, I hope to read your thoughts on these attributes (or others, as you wish) that accompany mercy:

“Mercy’s Companions: How Justice and Humility Complement Mercy”

Mercy’s Companions

Back in college, not much about me screamed mercy. Certainly I can remember a good deal of (self-) righteousness, and a great deal of attention to the rules of Christian behavior, as I interpreted them. Mercy, not so much. Let’s stipulate also that humility had not even begun to register on my mental list as a desirable trait.

One memory that has lived with me for years came to pass after an evening of chalking for a ministry I took part in. Campus groups at Baylor could obtain a permit to blanket the sidewalks between buildings with chalk reminders of upcoming events, and we’d gathered to chalk for Jesus. Afterward, several students stood chatting inside the ministry building after putting away our much-diminished chalk supplies. Seeing a number of friends (and one unfamiliar face) among the group, I walked over, ready to join in on impromptu dinner plans. Wrinkling my nose at a most-unfamiliar-within-this-building smell, I asked loudly of all my fellow Christians (and one stranger), “Has someone been smoking??”

I could feel all eyes in the group cut my way. As soon as it left my mouth, I knew what I’d done. The one face in the group I didn’t know? She was the smoker. The guy who’d invited her along had probably had to assure her we weren’t uptight and judgmental. And I’d just ruined it by announcing loudly what everyone else already knew but had had the grace to overlook: she didn’t follow our rules.

Her name was Alice. I never saw her in our ministry building again. To this day, every time she crosses my mind, I pray for Alice. I have prayed that she would find kinder people than me in the church. I have prayed to always remember that awful sensation of putting another person’s flaws in the spotlight, of marking someone else as an “other,” so that I wouldn’t do it again. I have prayed throughout our lives, mine and Alice’s, that God’s great great love would outdo my moment of thoughtlessness.

Thankfully, also back in college, I made a number of friends who helped light the way to living a more compassionate, thoughtful, merciful life. Some have walked with me every step of the way. Some faded out early, but left meaningful impressions on me. Others have drifted in and out over the years. One of those college friends, Paul Soupiset, is an award-winning artist and a contemplative observer of the spiritual in the everyday surroundings of life.

As I let Micah 6:8′s juxtaposition of justice and humility bracketing mercy roll around in my mind the last couple of weeks, I had started to think of mercy as a resting place. Justice seems to me like a call to action; humility presents itself to me as a cleansing of all pride. Mercy seemed like the place where you would sit with others to listen, to care, to extend (and maybe also receive) compassion.

So imagine my surprise on Friday when I saw this, Paul’s daily sketch in his Lenten Sketchbook 2013:

Mercy’s Companions, by Paul Soupiset. Used with permission. (Thanks, Paul!)

Paul pictures beauty and truth alongside mercy, all in a comfortable place to sit together. As I thought about that idea, it gave even more context and fullness to Micah’s complement of attributes: justice, mercy, and humility. When we think of justice, isn’t truth a significant part of what we expect justice to affirm? When we humble ourselves, are we not acknowledging the beauty that is found in setting our own self-interests aside? When we allow justice and humility to be companions to our mercy, aren’t we creating a beautiful, truthful place for others and ourselves to meet God?

I thought then of my friend Dawn in Austin, whose Funky Fish Designs creates jewelry that raises money for orphan care and adoption of children who are HIV positive, among other things. She is a whirlwind of action, and yet she takes time to make others feel special. Her kindness inspired Blossom to start praying for children in Africa who need parents, and in time, to give part of her spending money to groups who work in partnership with African communities to help orphans. Dawn’s influence is reaching around the world, and also reaching into my living room. That’s justice, mercy, and humility in action, in my book. Dawn makes a Micah 6:8 necklace, and of all her lovely works, this one means the most to me in this season of contemplating mercy’s companions.

Micah 6:8 necklace, from Funky Fish Designs

In our family life, we choose to uproot every couple of years and go somewhere new. Our adventures more than repay the cost of not being able to put roots down in one spot, but nevertheless, relationships have become the valuable currency of our lives. From my relationship with God in Christ comes my sense of the meaningful, and I approach new people now with a more nuanced view than I did with poor Alice back in college. But I know I still don’t emanate the warm invitation to come sit, come be part of all that God has to offer. Seek justice, love mercy, walk humbly with my God.

And pull up a chair full of truth and beauty, will you? Let’s rest awhile together.



From the Mind of a Kid: Oz the Great and Powerful

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Hey, HOBWAS! It’s Einstein again. It’s been a while! I’m sure that some of you have seen the new Oz movie: Oz, the Great and Powerful. It’s the story of how the wizard got to Oz. It’s a really good movie. Recommended for kids ages 8 to 888,888,888 to the power of 888,888,888. (Wouldn’t it be amusing if that number was a bunch of 8s?)

I digress. ANNNNNNNNNNNNNYWAY, I have read ALL 22 of the Oz books. All 22. As in, I read each and every one. Each having about 20-30 or so chapters. Not bad for a boy of 11. So, as you would expect, I’m reviewing the movie.

This is my system. I’ll split my rating into categories, rate each individually, and write a review for each. Then I’ll put down my overall rating.

 So, let’s get to it!
Seriously, what are you waiting for? LET’S GO!!!!!!
Oh, yeah, I’m writing this. Oops.
Storyline:
Rating: 10/10
Review: Wow. Just amazing. So, the basic storyline is there’s a carnival magician named  Oscar… Something. (It IS the name in the books, though!) His initials are O.Z.P.I.N.H.E.A.D. I’m not kidding. He goes by Oz. Pinhead is a bad reflection on his… intelligence. But, anyway. He gets in a hot air balloon. He hits a tornado (anything sound familiar?). He lands in Oz. He goes through tons of adventures and becomes the ruler of Oz.
Acting:
Rating: 10/10
Review: I told you this was amazing. Though I suspected two witches of being evil before it was real, and knew that a supposed “wicked” witch was not so wicked, it would fool someone with no knowledge of the series. But the acting was just amazing. Tremendous, wonderful. Such a good movie.
Compare to books:
Rating: 7/10
Review: Meh. I honestly think it had some similarity to the books. But, it’s a movie. Yup, leave it to Disney to decide to make changes. They got the Wizard’s name right. In THIS one, they got it right that GLINDA is the good witch of the SOUTH!!! They got some other pretty good details, and that Chinatown is a real place in the book. Loved how they knew that the Winkies were slaves of the Wicked Witch. Okay, Emerald City didn’t exist yet. The wizard was in charge, and had the people build it. People don’t die in Oz (Silly witches). Tinkers? You mean Gilikins? I swear, they got Quadlings right. They got Munchkins right, Winkies right, but Gilikins? Nope. They called them Tinkers. How silly.
Overall:

Rating: 9/10
Review:
Amazing movie! WATCH IT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-Einstein

Snow Day

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Last night, we went to bed assuming that snow would arrive before we awoke. The kiddos wore their pajamas inside out last night, which apparently is the signal to the stratosphere that snow is welcome.

(The snow responded well to the inside-out pajama signal, by the way, in case you need that info available to you anytime soon.)

So we slept in today, which of course means only that the kiddos woke up on their own at the exact time I usually have to drag them out of bed, moaning about their exhaustion, for school. (How does that happen?) Honey made pancakes. We all marveled at the speed and size of the snowflakes.

Finally, finally, we all agreed that the snow had gotten deep enough to work with. The nearly-new snowsuits came out; we pulled on gloves and snow boots and coats. We took coats off and, tucking the suspenders of the snowsuits below the coats, put them back on. Only to take them off again to adjust the gloves for minimal snow-to-wrist leakage. By which time A) Honey already had the base of the snowman made, and B) I would gladly have surrendered and gone back to bed.

But I didn’t, and I’m glad. We had great fun. Snowballs and snow bricks piled up thanks to Ladybug and Einstein.

Ladybug: “Daddy! I made a LOT of snowballs! Are you ready?”

Honey: “Sure! How many do you have?”

Ladybug: “THREE!!!”

So the piles were on the small side. Quality, not quantity, people.

Our snowman, fully formed, awaited only the final touches. I hunted down appropriate eyes and mouth materials while Ladybug heroically resisted eating the carrot nose.

Meanwhile, snow angels abounded in our lawn, always delightful to see, and we trooped back inside for our obligatory bowl of snow ice cream. I stood at the counter, mixing and adding more ingredients, when Honey burst inside.

“Kids! Come quick! From out of nowhere, a huge snow snake appeared and ate some kid who looked like he was coming to play with you! This is terrible!”

We bolted outside and, seeing the snow snake, laughed together.

No children were harmed in the making of this snow snake.

I love snow days.