Today is turning into one of “those” days. When things keep going amiss. Typically we ski every Saturday once the snow starts coming but it’s been hit or miss this year with it either being too cold (below 0 plus windchill) or too warm (60 degrees and rain). This week is cold but if you dress right it should be OK.
One of our biggest challenges is getting out of the house “on time” by 7:30 because it’s a two hour drive to the mountain. In years past, we’ve skiied at a place within an hour’s drive so it was not a big deal if we didn’t get out of the house until after eight. But getting out of the house never happened without a meltdown (I won’t name names), missing gear (once I forgot to pack Liam’s snowpants – expensive mistake) and threats of calling the whole thing off (again, no names).
So this year I vowed to be different. Organization would be key. Making sure we had every bit of gear and then some. Extra gloves, warm socks and baclavas. Ski pants (dry), boots, poles and skiis. And then there’s the food which is a very big part of the whole enterprise (unless you want to spend a fortune in the lodge cafe which we prefer not to do). The must have things like paper plates, plastic ware, knife and ciutting board (for the fruit and cheese). Paper towels, crackers, chips, etc, etc.
In years past I’d throw random things in reusable shopping bags, but we really upped our game and got the Scout BJ carrier bag which fits everything quite nicely. It tends to be pretty heavy but we have most everything someone in the group needs.
I packed everything yesterday and since there wasn’t skiing last night, I didn’t have to contend with the extra step of drying out our clothes, gloves and other gear. That was a huge help. And yet, at 7:20 a.m. no one was near ready to go and we almost reverted back to our behavior of past years. Truthfully, I’m the biggest problem here because I have very little patience in the morning, especially since I did most of the orgazational work. Can you sympathize with me on that?
Eventually, i told myself to relax since it’s not like we were under mandate to leave the house at 7:30 and then all was good. We made it to the mountain just a few minutes after our friends and had a wonderful day on and off the slopes.
As a side note, I thought I’d try daily blogging in February to get back into a writing rhythm.
Hope your day was great!
MC
I Am Writing 