Snowed in!

When I lived in Virginia, I loved the snow. If snow was in the forecast, everyone rushed out to the grocery store to buy milk and bread and stayed home until the roads were clear. And any amount of snow meant school closures. As it should be!  But in Utah, I've come to hate the snow. Since it snows so much here, people just go about their business. So snow means a mess of a commute: slideoffs, accidents and delays. Inevitably, what started out as beauty quickly becomes a dirty slushy mess.

It's "the blizzard of 2010" and they've finally got it right. Before the storm even arrived, I had been sent home and granted a couple of hours of admin leave because the Department of Transportation was urging people to stay off the roads.  Plenty of my friends think everyone is overreacting.  "What's the big deal?  This is Utah and it snows here!"  I, for one, am not complaining about being sent home early to wait out the storm safe inside my house. It's about time I got a snow day...or at least some snow hours.  And yes, I stopped by the grocery store to buy bread and milk. 

Being snowed in gives me a chance to catch up on my blog.  Ben has been particularly cute this week.  He's a pretty friendly kid and feels the need to introduce himself to everyone he meets.  Here's how his introductions usually go...

Ben: "Hi my name is Ben and I'm 3"
Stranger: "Nice to meet you Ben.  My name is ___"
Ben:  "How many years do you have?"
The stranger usually gives some pat response about being old.  At this point our time is usually up, so Ben will end the conversation.
Ben:  "Have a good day"
There's one addition he's been making lately to his conversations that cracks me up.  If he's talking to a man, his parting words will be "You're a good man."  I don't know where he gets that from but the strangers sure seem to enjoy the compliment.

One thing I love about 3 year olds is how literal they take everything.  After work, we stopped in at the grocery store, and between the storm and Thankgiving preparations, the parking lot was chaos.  I said to Ben "This place is a madhouse."  To which Ben responded "It's not a madhouse, it's a happy house."  To him a place that has race cars for grocery carts is a happy house!