Today we got a break. A snow day. Instead of being in court for most of my morning, I am instead sitting cozy in the recliner typing this blog, with my trusty furchild on the recliner’s footrest. It’s her “spot”.

Owning my own business isn’t always easy. There are days when I’d like to just throw in the towel (into the flames, perhaps to make sure it’s completely burned and not recoverable) and return to the corporate world of work. Those times, I question my own existence, question my sanity for doing this crazy thing, and even question the likelihood of potential success after years of labor. Then, a magical thing occurs. A snow day. This makes me remember one of the reasons that I left the corporate world, even if there are days I want to return running and screaming to its safety net. I don’t have to wait to see if someone else makes the decision for me on whether or not to go to work. I get to make that choice myself.

When I was in the corporate world, I was what was deemed “non-essential”. What a motivator that term is! Nothing like “non-essential” to make one feel loved and needed. But, in my old world, that just meant that we weren’t necessary on emergency days to actually be there since our work didn’t involve direct patient care or making sure that the electricity stayed on. Still, perhaps just saying that the “inclement weather policy” was in effect would be better than saying all “non-essential staff could stay home”. The latter was a rare treat, since one year the folks upstairs decided that it wasn’t fair to make the patient care folks come to work while the, say, accountants, stayed home. So, they chose to force people basically to come to work, clogging up the interstate and somewhat endangering the rest of the folks who were essential. It really didn’t make sense to me. It still doesn’t. I bucked the policy and told my folks to stay home, anyway. I even told my boss he could fire me if he wanted to, but I wasn’t taking responsibility for endangering the lives of my staff for something as inconsequential as “fairness”. I wanted to be able to sleep at night.

Turn the page to three years or so later, and here I am, home in my PJs, snuggled with my furchild on the recliner. Yes, there are good and bad things about working for yourself. The good – you choose your own hours, you set up your office the way you want to, you can pay yourself whatever your business can afford since you don’t have a set salary range that is dictated by some market study, you can wear jeans every day if you’re able, and you can close on snow days if you want. The bad – you have no guarantee of benefits or pay, you have to be self-motivated or the whole thing will crash, and it’s scary as hell. The latter will, indeed, keep you up at night if you let it. You have to have some level of gauged confidence to make the whole thing work. Not too much, not too little, kind of like Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

I worked up this morning to a verified winter wonderland. Moxie, the furchild, is more a fair weather creature, although today’s snow wasn’t too rough on her. When we got 8″ or so a couple of years back, she pretty much freaked out and didn’t go potty outside for about a week. I can imagine that it’s pretty cold on those tiny feet, and having snow cling to your fur is also intense. But, today, she traipsed right on out into the white stuff and did her business without fail.

Growing up in Arkansas, I still find snow to be a magical experience. I know it’s different for our friends up north, where it’s an every day nuisance during the winter. For me, though, it’s kind of like Christmas snow to some of those marginal to the north folks. It doesn’t happen every year, so when it does, it’s amazing. Truly. There is just something magical about the snow covering the ground, the muffled noises in the woods as a result, the sharpness of the chirping birds, and the stillness of the plants and trees – all frozen in time to so speak.

Today’s snow was probably less than one inch, but it covered the ground nicely and made the hill at the back of our property shine like a beacon. You can’t see the hill at all during the summer, and in the fall you can barely make out the shape at the right time of day. When it snows, though, it’s like the hill comes out of hiding kind of like those creatures that come out of the trees and rocks on those sci-fi shows. It just morphs into existence and BOOM!, it’s there. The tiny footprints left in the snow on our deck and front walk make me smile.

She’ll be eight soon. Although I try not to think about it too much, one of these days Moxie will be but a memory to us, gone from this earth like everything else eventually does. She’s had eight wonderful winters so far, with hopefully many more to come. I cannot fathom life without her, really, and just writing this makes me sad for the future that will be Moxie-less. That will be a terrible time, indeed. I recall the many snow days in the past, when I was a kid. The dogs we had then were few and far between and they were all outside dogs. I vowed as a young adult to have an inside dog for most of my grown-up adulting life, and so far, I’ve done that with the exception of a few years when we first got married and didn’t have a fence. Then, along came Moxie, and our lives have been better as a result.

I have some work that I could do today, yes. I have things I brought home with me to do, most of which I got done yesterday during the King holiday. I have a couple of files I could read over, and I might get to that later. For now, however, I’m going to sit here and make some good solid memories of a snow day in the woods with my furchild, thankful that I have the opportunity to make my own way, forge my ow path, call off work for the day because of the snow, and enjoy life. After all, that’s what it’s all about, now isn’t it?