Monday, February 15, 2010

Most of us live in Atlanta, because we have escaped the snowy, cold weather of the north. We enjoy the mild winters looking forward to the spring. Snow shovels and heavy snow gear is not part of our personal belongings anymore. However, every now and then nature surprises us and gives us something we least expect-- whether we want it or not. One might say Mother Nature rejuvenates our innocence and allows us to be six year olds again. Stress that comes with age is replaced with childhood delight and youthful playfulness. Overnight, the dull, gray, barren terrain in which I lived transformed into a sparkling white playground. I became a victim to its amazing beauty and although my body was that of a sixteen year old, I was six years old again! I looked out the window and found myself automatically throwing on layers of clothes, hat and gloves, as if programmed to do such things. I sprinted to the garage searching through the sports equipment, tools, and God knows what all else, finally unearthing the beloved sleds that had been retired for so long (I didn’t get to play in the last snow day). Somehow, a group of friends had managed to get themselves to my neighborhood and congregated at the top of the hill at the front of my house. They were as pumped as I was to hit the slopes.
We took turns flying down the hill. Eventually, we figured that we didn’t really even need the sleds to go down the hill; it was slippery enough to go down right on your belly! HAH! This was invigorating! Girls came and they were sliding down. They weren’t looking perfect anymore! In that moment they didn’t even care! Then, the snowball fight began. It wasn’t good packing snow…even when we tried to wet it down. It was still a good time--especially when we went sledding down Usher’s Mom’s backyard. After a couple of hours, I had lost feeling in my toes and my fingers. My nose was a faucet and I was dead beat. We all decided to go inside to see if we actually still had toes and fingers and an amazing aroma greeted us. Mom made hot chocolate and cookies. We took the cold weather comfort food downstairs and started a heated game of Catchphrase.
In the morning, I played in the snow with a different group of friends from the neighborhood at the clubhouse and we all ended up back at my house. It was good to see some of my old Chattahoochee friends. We showed how much we missed each other as we crammed snow down one another’s jackets. We returned to the slopes of Usher’s Mom’s house. It is quite a voyage to get there. Thorn bushes guard her backyard from kids like us, but our layers protected us effectively. When sledding down this massive hill, you have to jump off early to avoid running into the thorns head first and eventually into the lake. One of my friends forgot this little tidbit of information and went full speed into a face full of thorns. The thorns kept her from falling into the lake. That would have been an even worse disaster. Fortunately, we got this hilarious incident on film! Only kidding… she is fine and walked away with only a few scratches (but seriously the film is on facebook). Good times…

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