Hutch is at the bakery with me this morning. School was canceled again today because of the snow and he’s literally bored to tears. We took a walk through the woods yesterday but that wasn’t nearly enough stimulation. I make fun of southerners and their overreaction to winter weather but this time the snow is pretty legitimat, and it’s stuck around for a while. I’ve been told that Williamson County (where we live) has got one (1) snow plow which is why all but the interstate remains covered with snow and ice. I have a Jeep so we’re getting around ok. The Jeep makes me feel powerful, like a superhero.

On Saturday, the morning after the storm, we went out for breakfast and tried to find a sled, but all the stores have already stopped stocking them, so we headed over to the Ingrim’s for a visit. Jason and Culley are in our community group and their daughters are the same age as our kids. They live on a seven-acre hill in Franklin and have a great sledding slope. They’d been literally snowed-in and were glad for the company. Their sledding hill began from their front door and they had a sled to we gave it a go. The thin layer of ice made for a perfect surface and in about 20 seconds you could be at the bottom of the hill. Jennifer watched me take the hill and couldn’t resist. She jumped on head-first and pushed off. We watched as she got smaller and smaller and wrecked legs over head at the end of the run. What we couldn’t see from the top of the hill was that, in her attempt to stop the sled before sliding into the sewer drain, Jennifer pushed down on the front of the sled breaking through the quarter-inch layer of ice she was sliding on. When she did the sled stopped but her face didn’t. All of her forward momentum was directed into the ice, her forehead leading the way. From the front porch it appeared that Jennifer popped up unfazed, but as she made her way up the hill it became clear that something bad had happened in the wreck. When Jennifer was about 100 feet from the house we could see blood and the closer she got the worse the carnage became. The ice had carved a curved line in Jennifer’s face from the center of her forehead to just below her left cheekbone and the sharp little shards of ice that implanted themselves into her skin were melting into little red spots. Her eye was already beginning to show a bruise. Our first reaction was surprise, then Jason said “Quick, get the camera.” He wanted to be sure to document the event. Cully took Jennifer inside and cleaned her up a little and we decided we should all quit while we were still alive.

Jennifer is recovering well. She’s still beautiful even with a bruised face.

Stay warm,
Jeromy