A lot of things can make you toss your schedule out the window for a day (even if it's only the metaphorical tossing of an online calendar).

In the past couple of weeks, I've had to adjust mine because our car broke down and I had to get it towed to the shop. Earlier this week, I had to leave work early because Lucy said she was going to barf at school. The same thing happened yesterday afternoon when Alice's babysitter called in sick.

Over the years, I've discarded the schedule for more serious reasons, too.

Lucy, Alice and Adam have all spent time in the hospital. Adam even had a life-threatening heart infection, though I didn't know how seriously sick he was at the time or I might not have been sitting by his bed cheerfully updating his resume.

So when the phone rang at around 6 a.m., I woke up with a pounding heart. Early morning phone calls are almost never a good thing. But it was nothing bad. Just the robo-call from school letting us know classes are canceled for the day.

Even though I have a lot of work to do, and even though I had many other plans that I now must reschedule, I am celebrating the snow day. As soon as the sky is no longer black, I'm bundling up the kids and clipping the leash on the dog, and we're going to play.

When snow days hit, we like to pick our way slowly up the steep hill to a neighborhood park. We like to make snow angels on the grass. We like to toss soft snowballs at each other and for the dog, who finds them delicious and confusing. Where did it go? Did I eat it? Make another!

Once everyone (but the dog) is too cold for this, we go to our favorite coffee shop and have cocoa and cinnamon rolls the size of Alice's head. Then we walk home, pink-cheeked and sticky, and read stories on the couch.

When I was little, I loved snow days because it meant we didn't have to go to school. Now that I'm a parent, I love them because it means ordinary life is suspended. All the chores and obligations that seemed so important and felt so heavy, it turns out, aren't. They aren't as important as staying safe and warm. They aren't as important as playing outside and reveling in a world that's gone from green to white. They aren't as important as cocoa and cinnamon rolls and the warmth those things represent.

Usually, we only stop to be grateful for all the good things when something bad has happened. When we've found out a friend has cancer, or that someone's house has burned down, or that we're trying, ourselves, to hold on to hope when we're feeling awash in despair.

So I'm grateful for the glorious inconvenience of a snow day, where all is calm, all is bright, and everything else can wait for another day.

(Martha is on vacation this week, so this is an encore of a previously published post.)