It’s snowing today.

As a child, I often longed for weather like this. Snowmen and angels were but the stuff of movies and carols in southern Louisiana. A "white" Christmas was the gift on everyone’s  list that no one had the hope of ever recieving. We had "hurricane days" while the world north of Monroe had gleeful vacations filled with iceball wars and frozen forts. And that was that.

We moved to Arkansas just over three years ago (luckily avoiding the tragedy that was Katrina and later the often forgotten storm that tore through our hometown, Rita); and, although we didn’t exactly go as far north to consider ourselves "Yankees", we did step into an entirely different world. A world without boiled crawfish or fried boudin balls. A world without king cakes and Mardi Gras beads. A world without the the saxophone player on the corner or the shrimp truck on the side of the road…

A world with snow.

The first snow was amazing. I over-bundled Little Man in winter clothing, grabbed the newly purchased jacket that barely covered my ever-growing pregnant belly, and headed out into my very own childhood dream come true… We had a lovely time for close to an hour, I’d say, until  the infamously tardy realization that oft colors my life dawned. Snow was not, in fact, as glamorous as those movies and carols had proclaimed it to be. Snow was cold and messy and wet. Snow was unsafe and bothersome. It kept us trapped indoors for days, blocked roadways, and barrelled through utility poles and rooftops like an angry mob on the trail of injustice.

It’s snowing today… And I am once again reminded of how much I truly miss home.