First Snow in the QC! [PICS and a dang good story]

"Mommy!! I wanna play in the snow!!"  I hear her excitable words. I cringe at the cold and definitely pull the covers back up over my nose.  The thought of shoveling my driveway..oh the loong driveway...again this year is not on my top list of warm thoughts. Then I remembered this!

I have teenagers!!! I have girls who can help! I shoveled the driveway all by myself last year, mainly because it happened at 3a.m., before I went in to the morning show (and so I could get out of the driveway!). Oh, last year was brutal from a shoveling standpoint. I swore this year I'd get a snowblower. With this seemingly 'early snow' we got Friday night, I just didn't make the time to keep that promise to myself.

My daughter and her boyfriend were cozy in the house on the couch when I got the revelation. Wait a minute. I have able bodied people who can help and she was long overdue for some extra chores in exchange for consequences from earlier in the week. I went in and requested their help. Thankfully, they came out and helped!

All three of us were outside shoveling. I was chuckling internally at their goofiness and laughter. It was good for the soul to see teenagers doing work and actually laughing and having fun while doing it. We live in such a world of entitlement when it comes to most young people. They expect their cell phones to be paid for, endless taxi rides to and from hangouts with friends, the money to do the things they want and then seem to act surprised when you expect their chores to be done without you having to tell them 50 times.

I declared a 'Zero-Tolerance-to-Entitlement' day and it worked! And you know what they received for an hour of their work? Hot cocoa and homemade chocolate chip cookies plus movie time the rest of the day. Because they chipped in and saved me time and all the work to myself, I had spare time to throw snowballs with my little one, I got to have extra laughs I wouldn't have had otherwise, I had the time to make cookies with my youngest and then happily serve them for their hard work. Everyone was happy.

I think I might invite all her friends over next time for a snow shoveling day in exchange for cookies and laughs. Hard work always pays off. I hope they got the lesson. If anything, that lesson was sure delicious for all of us!