Snow Day!

Today is a day off from work because of the weather. Working with special needs children in educational settings means I follow "the district where my office is located" schedule. So, every so often (and in the district I am located that translates to "we are the very last in the county to close so it happens almost never") I get a snow day. It isn't a free pass, however-I will have to make it up in the spring during a week I would have had "off".
I started thinking of all the weather days I have experienced:
When I was IN school and I would pray for snow days. I would jump and cheer and make plans with my friends-mostly involving sled riding and snowball fights! Growing up here in Pittsburgh I remember LOTS of snow days! I lived in WV for my senior year I remember my friend, who was an exchange student from Germany, not believing it when we had a snow day.

When I started my career I almost did not get hired because Christmas break was extended for over a week due to a blizzard-and the School Board in that county could not meet to "approve" me. Luck would have it that there was a few days of good weather-I was approved, hired, started and then we had 17 more snow delays or cancellations that year. That, for the record-was the highest in my 12+ years of working now.

When I lived in Florida I missed snow delays! I would fondly recall them and think "Just once I would have like to sleep in "unexpectedly". Then, one year Charlie, Frances, Jean and Ivan (and some other storms way down in the ABC's I can't remember) brought "Hurricane days" Wow! and the best part? Some of these days were sunny and dry-no hurricane. When our county opened shelters and issued any type of evacuation the schools closed because, well, the schools ARE the shelters. That year, due to multiple storms in Florida resulting in this, our governor asked some counties to open shelters when the storm wasn't expected to hit us-since shelters in affected areas had been damaged! Woot! Free (warm and sunny) day! Do you know where you were the day after 9/11? I do-home, because we had a hurricane day-but that storm went north of us at the last minute-still, a day off!. I loved hurricane days! (Call me crazy but you should know all of the hurricanes that actually hit my area came on Saturdays and Sundays)

My first year back living here was the year of the ice storms and a fair amount of snow. I was so happy when we had snow days because I seemed to have lost all my snow driving skills-I.was.terrified.

Now, I think I would rather just have a delay so I can sleep in a bit. It sucks having to make up days in the spring.