SNOW DAY!

December 1 and winter is here! The storm the weather people have been predicting all week finally hit this morning. I don't know why, but I can't sleep the night before something like this, probably the anticipation of what might be. I also go into worry mode about any of my kids having to be out on the roads in the early morning and hoping they call a snow day for schools. That would mean my daughter would not have to go out with the boys and they could stay safely in bed. It could also mean my son wouldn't have to head out for his early morning college class.

So when I woke up around 2:45, I had to look outside and see just how bad it might be at this time of the day. I could already see a coating of something on the road and my car, but it didn't look too bad. Then I couldn't get right back to sleep, and did hear the snowplows/salt trucks come through. By the time I got up at 5 am, the coating on the streets was just wet, but I suspected it would freeze if it wasn't already. By the time I got ready to leave around 5:30 am, it had started the freezing something or other--not really sleet, not rain, but not snow. Just a frozen concoction coating the streets and my car. And coming down fast.

I had already decided to leave as early as possible to avoid any road hassles, but I didn't leave early enough to avoid the freezing stuff on the windshield. I went out to start my car and nearly slipped and fell almost immediately. So it was going to be a slippery commute. After letting my car run for more than 10 minutes, the windshield wipers still would not budge from all the frozen stuff weighting them down. I didn't want to delay leaving any more, so did the obvious no-no: I dumped a glass of water (but not hot) over the wipers so I could at least break up the ice and get moving. It worked pretty fast, and I was able to scrape the stuff away from the wipers at least, but the windshield was still solid. Another couple of minutes waiting for that and I was on my way.

The roads were slick but manageable. I just went slow and easy. The radio was announcing all the school closings, and I was relieved to hear that most of the schools were closed, so no one had to go out on the roads right away at least. It got me thinking of the snow days--or lack thereof--when I was going to school. In all my school years, going to city schools, we had 2 days called for snow. My kids, going to rural schools, usually had 2 days before Christmas each year. It always seemed like the worst days came in the early days of the season.

I got to the gym early--way earlier than I really needed to do what I planned to do. Today was a swim day and I was only swimming 45 min. That left me well over an hour to get ready. So I thought I would make some coffee in the office to drink while I was getting ready (the gym is in my office building). No one would be there, I was sure, but I figured the coffee would get used, so decided it wasn't wasteful to make a couple of pots--one decaf and one flavored, my personal blend.

What happened after that was one coffee disaster after another. First, the flavored coffee is made in a Bun coffee system, a stand-alone unit. I filled the water reservoir first, and then realized that I should have emptied the old grounds, put in new, and then put the water in. So it leaked all over the place, and started spraying when I took the old grounds out to dump those. So there was a nice mess to clean up: water and old coffee all over the counter, floor, and under the machine. Just what I wanted to do at 6 am--clean up the office.

Next, the decaf I was making was in a new coffee system. It looked easy enough to make, but once I got the beans ground and ready to turn on all the buttons, I realized I had a choice to make: high water, medium, or low. Figuring we usually selected high, I pushed the button and then went back to finish cleaning up the other mess. Before I knew it, this pot was overflowing. OMG, now what! Apparently, the high water selection was too much, so all the coffee was now squirting out of the spout, and a puddle was forming all over the counter, under the machine, and rolling over the edge onto the floor--again.

All right, this is really getting ridiculous, I thought. But I couldn't just leave it, for obvious reasons, and got busy cleaning that mess up, only to find that the coffee was still squirting all over the place. I had to get another pot and drain off quite a bit before it stopped overflowing. Lesson learned.

Then I decided it wasn't hot enough to last until I was done with my swim, so I decided to put a cup in the microwave to heat it up some more. When I looked inside after the timer went off, what did I find AGAIN? Another mess. Either the cup leaked or overflowed from being too hot, so now the microwave had about a half an inch of coffee in there to clean up. Just another mess to deal with! I really don't think I will do this again. I could have stopped anywhere on the way and it would have been faster--and hotter!

Okay, time to go swim and get out of there! Not a good idea, that's for sure.