Yesterday afternoon, Ms. L, M, and H created cool sculptures out of the crazy-big icicles knocked down from the edge of our roof. This one reminds me of a city skyline.

And speaking of cities, this weekend is the SCBWI conference in New York. For those of us not going, here’s a link to the SCBWI blog coverage of the event. Thank you, Alice Pope and team members, for keeping us in the loop. Wish we were there. On the bright side though, more time to play in the snow.

Snow-Day Excuses

Not complaining. It’s winter, and it’s supposed to snow around here. Kids are supposed to get a few snow days during the year—that’s part of the fun of being a kid, seeing the town’s name on the TV news crawl or, nowadays, getting that email and phone blast: No school!

But today’s cancellation is messing up my designated full day of writing. I write on other days, too—in fact, just about every day—but since I had no freelance commitments today, I had a full day open. That plan started to go by the wayside when we slept in a bit due to no school. Follow that with leisurely enjoyment of warmy, gooey cinnamon rolls at breakfast–and the digression of watching Jeff Bridges on Ellen. I suppose that was a writerly digression, Jeff Bridges’ connection to True Grit and all, but TV viewing is not a friend of the call to work. So then, speaking of grit, I had to drag out the vacuum, all that wintertime grit accumulating on the floor and rugs—not that I worry too much about that on most work mornings, but since I noticed it today, had to take care of it before I could settle in at my desk. Vacuuming done, it’s time to work. Well, as soon as I help Ms. L round up gloves, hat, etc. for sledding. Ah, there’s the doorbell; they’re off. Hmm, maybe while they’re out, I should take care of some shoveling? Or look up the weekend temperatures with cross-country in mind. How about another cup of coffee? I think the cat’s hungry. Is there a load of laundry that needs to go in the dryer? Maybe I should take a shower? Do we have enough cocoa in the house?

No. Will. Sit. And. Work.

Just as soon as I post this …

Snow Day

Lightning and thunder around 5 a.m., or I think that’s what time it was. Kind of a cool, if slightly apocalyptic, phenomenon—a thunderstorm during a blizzard. All that meteorological drama resulted in this:

7:45 a.m.

Ms. L. is currently with a friend over at the sledding hill, though I hear that there’s too much snow for sledding, so they’re just hanging out. Too much snow for sledding? Okay, that’s some storm. I sense cocoa in the not-too-distant future. Happy snow day!

2011

You know how some words just feel like anagrams, where as soon as you look at them, you wanna scramble, or unscramble, the letters to form another word hiding within? Well, “2011″ looks like that to me, only not in word form. More like an emoticon seeking a more legitimate existence. Something more serene and stately than a shout at the end of a sentence. Maybe that’s a sign of what’s to come this year—superficial clamor giving over to quieter, meaningful intention?

Happy 2o11.