Equal Time

Lest anyone think my memories are one-sided, I wanted to share this one. Snow days. We had one here in town the other day when the winter storm blew through. Mind you, there was no snow, but there was the threat and some sleet so the schools all closed. Apparently there were a few extra days left over from the hurricane.....

Anyway, my husband commented that he used to love snow days but figured I hated them, being the geeky nerdy kid that I was. No so.

My mom was a school teacher so she was home with us all day. Snow days were some of the rare days that mom would venture into the kitchen (sorry Mom, but you didn't cook much when we were growing up!) We used to make homemade hot chocolate - the kind that you had to mix up in a giant bowl first (a full can of cocoa, a full box of powered milk, a large container of creamer, etc.) and then store the mix in large containers or split it and share it with your friends. It seemed to make the best hot chocolate! And since snow days were very rare in our part of the country, it would be awhile until you'd make more so you'd savor each cup.

And then there were the baked goods! Mom always loved to make an ooey gooey butter cake. Delicious! Couldn't even sniff at a piece right now without gaining 5 pounds, but those cakes were to die for. And the peanut butter cookies that you pressed a Hershey's kiss into while they were hot so the chocolate would melt. Mmmmm.. We used to get the task of unwrapping all the kisses while Mom rolled the cookies in sugar. Of course, we used the roll of peanut butter cookie dough so that made the process a little faster. Those cookies didn't last long. Later on there were other cakes introduced into the process. The pina colada cake was fun because you got to poke holes in it with a straw and then suck the cake out of the straw. No telling how many germs we probably shared. But we were all family.

Anyway. Other good memories from the simple stuff. Stuff to share. Hopefully I've been successful at creating a few of these with my loved ones.