Sometimes I get caught up in memories from the past. Today is one if those days. It’s a cold-day in Houston. Because we don’t drive in ice but once every 5 or 6 years, this wet winter blast closed schools and some offices. These kind of days bring so many memories and wishes and sighs.

I think back over the weather days thru the years. They were meant to keep us safe. But, we knew that they were really fun days. When we were first married, we were iced in at my parents house. My dad built a big wooden sled and pulled it behind his pickup truck. Daddy’s favorite thing was to pop the rope and dump us off the sled into the snow drifts. I can still hear Terry laughing. And there was the year I was pregnant with our son and we had ice in Houston. We lived in a 2nd story apartment. The steps were icy and I couldn’t see my feet, so Terry had to help me make it safely down. I don’t know what we did that day, I just remember the giggles while he herded me on the ice.

Today the streets are now clear and as my daughter and I drove past West Oaks Mall, visions of the past came flying out to greet me. Memories of chilly mornings sharing a Cinnabon with Terry while we waited for the stores to open. We knew the stores well and our hunt for Beanie Babies and Snow villages and other fun collectables was about to begin. We weren’t looking for much and it really wasn’t about shopping as much as it was being together and having fun. None of those stores survive in that mall today. But in my memories they linger still.

On this ice day, I will make new memories with my daughter. I will remember playing with the little dogs, giggling while scraping ice off the windshield, hunting for THE Tex-Mex restaurant and girls night at the movies. I will store these memories away until they are stirred to the surface sometime in the future.

I know I must live in the present. But reality is often softened by those sweet memories of yesterday.