Why I Don't Bother with Umbrellas

Or "barellas" as my littlest calls them. The kids were asking me yesterday, as we prepared to go out in a downpour, why we don't have any umbrellas. And this, my dears, is the reason...

Do you think that a silly bit of fabric-on-a-stick would have kept my jeans from being soaked through? And the bottom half of my coat? I don't think so. Not when its raining sideways buckets. And windy besides... Had I an umbrella, it would have turned into a sail in my hands, and I would have been fighting just to keep it in alignment.

Granted, perhaps my sleeves would have stayed dry (had I held them up beside my ears). But truly, whats the point anyway? As they say in Scandinavia (from whence a good portion of my ancestors hail), "There is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing".

Waterproof boots, waterproof coat with a deep hood, and fortitude are all we need.

I wish I had a picture to show you of my dripping-wet daughter, but she was in an all-fired hurry to get out of her wet things to go hang them by the stove to dry.

Oh, that's right. Still no fire in the stove.

"Well, Mama, I dess (guess) we can hang our wet things in our wooms to dwy!" To which I replied, "Good thinking... but how about we hang them in the mud room, honey? That way the drips won't get the carpet wet." To which she responded with a very dramatic slap of her palm to her forehead, as if to say, what was I thinking?

This is the same girl that a few days ago, on our way to big Brother's classroom for pick-up stated, "Mama, I'm pwetending dat da yewwow sticks and weaves are poisoned, so don't step on dem, otay?"

I honestly didn't mind the soaking, and driving through muddy streams, and standing water in the yard. Wanna know why?

The rain took the snow away. All but the drifts, that is, but who's counting?