Without a Trace

The envelope’s shredded remains littered the counter. Finger tapping lips, she contemplated a plan. Tossing the paper she hobbled on tired, pain-riddled feet, scooped bathroom items into a bag, then crammed clothes, outerwear and shoes into her time and travel worn suitcase. After the travel agent emailed tickets and reservations she called a taxi. She fled – no note.
Escape accomplished, warmly bundled, she stepped outside the hotel into a snowflakes fluttering, snow covered fantasy under the slate gray skies of North Pole Alaska. Gathering the fur trimmed hood under her chin she shuffled away from Februpocolypse into February bliss.

Writing today for Thin Spiral Notebook’s 100 Word Challenge where this week’s word is “Paper”, and another challenge from a friend to write about changing a dismal February into a dream come true.

 

Predictable Anticipation

The doorbell rang. Cursing because she had to run downstairs to answer it. She had just settled down with her laptop, her blog, Facebook and the comforting  red jeweled glass of Merlot.

The day had been wound up from the moment she launched out of bed realizing the alarm had critically failed to wake her. Adrenalin setting her onto that course your brain and body know by heart when you have “alarm clock failure”. The routine was put on auto-pilot and she found herself walking out the door 20 minutes later showered, dressed and adequately beautified albeit, with wet hair pulled into a ponytail.

The damn weatherman was predicting snow and so much had to be accomplish. There was no way to know when it would actually start since forecasts are as reliable as asking the neighbors Pomeranian to predict it. The grocery store was wide-spread chaos with the “Oh my gosh I’m going to get snowed in crowd” panicking in the milk and meat aisles. She fought her way through the pandemonium and found a carton of organic milk, a can of frozen orange juice and whooped when she grabbed the last ham. With a few more necessities for dinner she flew to the checkstand, only to wait with the other shoppers who chatted manically about the impending storm.

Thankful for the training her momma had provided, she put out all the “fires” and tidied up the house then contemplated the view outside. The horizon, heavy and gray with the load it bore, rolled in like an ocean swell and she wondered why she bothered and dragged herself to her chair.

Aggravated by the bell, she pattered down the stairs to the entry, opened the door to the smile, the flowers and that face, and the snow began to fall.

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I’m linking up with Write On Edge for Red Writing Hood’s prompt:

We’d like you to craft a piece of fiction or creative non-fiction around the holiday season, keeping in mind that for some people “the holiday season” begins around Halloween and doesn’t end until well after the New Year is underway.

The piece should begin with “The doorbell rang” and end with “snow began to fall.

Sparks and Rays

I trusted the weather forecast. I know. Big mistake, right? Well it’s April for heaven sake! When it says it’s going to be sunny and warm (50’s is warm here in Wild, Wonderful, Wacky, Windy Wyoming) I want to believe it. I MUST believe it! Especially after this long, cold, snowy, winter. I’m more than ready for a big fat dose of WARM.

I’m on a bit of a vacation since school is on break which means I don’t have to be up in the morning in wide anticipation of my beautiful granddaughters and the breakfast crunch to get my daughter ready for school.

It’s my time to catch up on missing sleep which is due to that evil time in a womans life we call “The Change”, so I slept in. I heard and felt the wind’s pressing insistence on my crappy windows throughout the night, but I was not prepared for SNOW on the ground…. AGAIN!

What is a mom and her girl to do on a shrieking, snappy day that was suppose to be nice? You climb into your “comfy clothes” (aka Boca granny velour jogging suit for me and basketball shorts and a tank top for the girl), and forget to put on your face and fix your hair. You waste some time on the computer facebooking and reading mindless junk and catch up on episodes of “No Ordinary Family” so your girl can finally talk to you about the ending. It was a day to count as good because you happened to have hoagie buns in the bread drawer so you could make “Good Friday” meatless subs and eat yogurt covered pretzels on the side for lunch.

It wasn’t really the day I hoped for but at the end, when the shuddering of the wind has subsided to a shiver, I can look back and say “Not bad! Not bad at all!” I wanted sun so we could venture outside or skip town for a road trip. Instead, I found sun within as my girl and I spent the day finding sparks and rays in the mundane.

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Linking this up with The Lightning and the Lightning Bug’s “Dare to Share”

I took some liberties because here, rain is not on our minds for weather issue, rather it’s SNOW! So I changed from rain to snow for the  prompt.  🙂

It’s Dare to Share time! The theme this time is “Rainy Days” – link up your posts, old or new, about rainy days.