NEWS FLASH: Snow in Alabama!

My husband has been with the TV station so long that the only time they call him in on weekends is if there is a big story, like when Birmingham abortion clinic bomber Eric Robert Rudolph was finally captured. So when the station called him Saturday and asked him to co-anchor the Sunday morning news, I knew big news was expected. Mother Nature didn’t let us down.

When Truman and I finally rolled out of our beds Sunday morning (Rick had to be at the station at 6 a.m.) the yard was covered with snow! I haven’t seen snow in so long I forgot what it looked like. Truman saw flurries two years ago but hardly remembers that. And last year when we got a dusting of the white stuff here in Birmingham, we were in New Orleans and missed it. I think we got about four inches Sunday. It was just above freezing outside so the streets and walkways were pretty clear. But since the overpasses were icing over, many of the streets closed. And you know it’s a big deal in Alabama if churches cancel services, which most did.

We had a blizzard here in 1993. We got something like 12 inches and it literally shut down the city for a week. Power outages lasted for days and it was pretty miserable by the end. Rick was a cub reporter then and worked 48 hours straight. He dreads snow for that very reason. But in comparison, this snowfall is awesome. The power is on, which means the heat is on. And Rick came home once the morning news went off – which means he could relieve me of the snow-playing duties.

Truman was ecstatic. He leaped out of bed and of course the first thing we had to do was run outside, make a snow angel and throw snowballs at each other. Truman ate a wad of snow (hope MIL doesn’t read this!) and then we made our mini snowman. Of course, neither of us really knew what to do so we used sticks for arms, the tip of a carrot for a nose, parsley for hair, dried currants for eyes and a piece of a cinnamon stick for a mouth. Then we jazzed him up with some colored sugar sprinkles. And no masterpiece is complete until the artist partakes in eating the decorations!