It has been a week. We’ve been busy with work, school, and oh yes, my son getting absolutely bogged down by Influenza B. We have all been feeling the effects of being on fever watch, not sleeping or at least not sleeping comfortably, and just the general frustrations of trying to be a functioning adult and parent these days.

As I write this, Minnesota is in the midst of a Blizzard Warning. We’ve already accumulated 13+ inches of snow and there is still more to come. The drift at the end of our driveway was to my husband’s waist and growing. We will not be going anywhere today and honestly, I am not the least bit sad about it.

By mid-March, most Midwesterners are well over the possibility of any new snow hitting the ground, but not me. I love winter. I love the snow. I love the hunkering down of it all. The last few years in our part of Minnesota has felt pretty un-Winter. Every major snow storm has always gone just North of us or South, missing us completely and leaving us with just a cold, drab Winter. Snow makes it magical. It adds a sparkling beauty to it that nothing else can. I don’t want to see my dead grass when it’s cold. I want the snow. Give me ALL the snow, but I digress.

With the impending Snowpocalypse upon us, I did what any normal Midwesterner does: prepped for the hunkering down. Of course, that means stocking up on your favorite hunkering down snacks: milk, eggs, frozen pizza, pastries and ready to bake cookies! That is what everyone else buys, right? 🙂

Full disclosure, I have not been sitting like a bump on a log since returning to the confines of our home after the excessive people-ing of the pre-storm hunker down stock up. I have done some laundry and will probably do a little more today. I will also be giving the house surfaces another wipe down to combat the spread of the flu. (Who am I kidding? We’re probably all infected already.) I feel like that is enough.

These days it feels like we constantly have somewhere to be and something that needs to be done. Maybe we’ll get some stuff inside the house, but there’s no rushing out to the stores. There’s no busyness today. Today, we move at our own pace and do the light work. Maybe watch some Supernatural (we’ve got our 10 year old started on the Brothers Winchester), maybe do some reading. Maybe we’ll go out and play in the snow or maybe we’ll just make sure the dog has a place to relieve herself when she wants to brave the cold.

My point is that today is not our typical Sunday reset. Today, it feels like Mother Nature has given us permission to just be, but do we really need Mother Nature to give us that permission? Maybe from here on out, it’s time we give ourselves that permission and not feel bad about it. Maybe that’s how our kids will learn from us and see that rest is okay. Maybe some days, snow or no snow, we just need to be.