I know you're out there. School is cancelled. Roads are impassible. It's a snow day, and if you're in the livestock business, that means something totally different for you this time of year than the traditional use of the phrase.

Snow day. According to Urban Dictionary, one of the most popular public definitions of the term is "An unexpected break. An unexpected escape from it all. A day to relax, not a day to catch up on work".

Let's just take a moment to wipe the tears of laughter from our eyes, shall we? If you own livestock, then that right there is definitely NOT your definition of a snow day.

On a snow day, you get up early. Actually, it's possible you've been up several times during the night. You had to check the waterers to make sure they didn't freeze over. Maybe you never even went to bed because you have several animals who are due to give birth at any moment. You've been watching them closely and made sure those with close due dates were safe in warm pens before the snow began. If you know anything, you know that snowfall and labor go hand in hand. There is always, ALWAYS, at least one momma that decides the middle of a blizzard is the best time ever to have her baby, and she's and are likely to throw a calf with in the middle of a snow bank if you're not watching her like a hawk.

You get the usual morning chores done, but you can't go in and put your feet up yet. You have a load of feed coming in two hours, which means you have to hustle to throw the blade on the tractor and push snow so the semis can get in your driveway. It will take much longer than two hours to really do justice to pushing back the eight inches you got last night. So for now you'll have to start by creating a path for the trucks, then later you'll have to come back out and finish the rest.

By mid afternoon you're back in the barns checking on those snow day babies. Everyone is tucked in tight and warm, so you head back inside to do some book work and tax prep. Tax season seems to come earlier and earlier every year. Your eyes burn as you focus on the numbers - you're feeling that two a.m. herd check now. As you pour yourself another cup of coffee - black - you look out the window and realize the wind has picked up. You know what that means. You shrug back into your coveralls and boots and head out to start plowing again.

Twenty minutes later, you smile from your perch in the cab of the tractor as you watch your kids pile out the front door, arrayed in a multicolored rainbow of scarves, hats, mittens and snowpants. You toot the horn at them, and they all wave, then you see them whoop and holler as they catch sight of the "snow mountain" you've been making them. In two seconds, they're making their way to the top, and you know they'll be sliding and rolling down it until their cheeks are red and their mittens are caked with snow.

When the tractor is stashed safely back in the shed, you head over to check on the new babies again. You feel a sense of pride as you watch a newborn walk on wobbly legs over to nurse. The barn door bangs open and a cold wind blows in as the kids, lobbing one last snowball missile, barge in to oooh and aaaah and the new additions. You glance out the window and realize the light is fading already. Time for supper. With a kid under each arm, you charge for the house, where you know there's a plateful of something warm and good waiting for you.

No, maybe your snow days don't look like the textbook definition. Maybe they're better.

I've been working in the livestock promotions industry for over 16 years, so it is with no small sense of shame that I make this confession:  until ten days ago, I had never been to the National Western Stock Show.

Not familiar with the National Western Stock Show? Neither was I when I first began working for the executive directors of the Iowa Angus Association in 2000. Dave and Annette Sweeney of Alden, IA had a lifetime of cattle experience, but they needed someone who knew layout and design to help them create and publish the association's newspaper and directory. I didn't know anything about cattle, but I did know layout and design. What started out as a newlywed college student's part-time job turned into not only a career and the establishment of two graphic design businesses, but a lifelong friendship and partnership.

Do the new thing.

After two years, our family had grown by a boy and a girl. I loved the work I did for the Sweeneys, and I loved my children, but I couldn't keep trying to combine the two by bringing my children to work (Anybody ever tried that? It's a super good time. I'm being sarcastic. Two kids + a billion computer cords and cables = disaster). It was time for a change. Annette and I talked about me working at home. It was a risk on her part, but we decided to give it a try. Immediately I was able to accomplish far more from home than I had going in to the office.

Do the new thing.

Several years after we founded Practical Promotions, a graphic design business that contracted with an auction service and cattle producers to create sale catalogs for cattle sales, change was again in the air. Annette Sweeney ran for and won a seat in the Iowa House of Representatives. It was a complete joy to work side by side with her on her campaign and watch her shine in a role that truly only she could have fulfilled at that time. When the time came and she handed over Practical Promotions to my sole management, I was nervous, but I was ready. If she could step out, so could I.

Do the new thing.

Things keep changing, and I keep doing the new thing. If I'm being honest, I'd have to say it's kind of opposite my natural bent. I like consistency, safety, and sameness - yet I often find myself saying, "Yes!" when a new challenge arises. It doesn't make sense, I know. I added web design and social media management to my list of services, and this summer I went into partnership with Dave Sweeney as Livestock HUB. It's because of Livestock HUB that I ended up at the National Western Stock Show for the first time - the first time, but certainly not the last.

I loved it. I loved the people, I loved the cattle, I loved the exhibits and the food and the smell of the sawdust. I watched an Australian horse trainer explain how he trained horses to do specific tasks for film and TV. I walked the yards and admired all the beautiful banners promoting farms and ranches all over the U.S. (It's a graphic designer's occupational hazard - getting sidetracked by great design work). I saw the artistry of the teams of groomers who worked long, hard hours preparing the cattle for the shows and sales. I met ranchers from South Dakota and Missouri and Wisconsin and Iowa who were eating and sleeping with their cattle for days on end - and loving every minute of it. I ate grilled burgers and potato salad with cattle breeders and brisket and cornbread and beans in the exhibit hall. I had my boots shined for the first time.

I could go on about rides back to the hotel with Mike Sorensen of Livestock Plus and his family, my poor husband's suffering through an awful cold, Jeanne Conover's ever ready stash of peanut M&Ms and popcorn and friendly chats with cattlemen over breakfast buffets. I could tell you about waking up and seeing the mountains behind the skyscrapers of downtown Denver, visiting the Yard Bar and hearing stories of days remembered, and hearing the swoosh thunk of the bid cards coming in through the pneumatic tube in the sale office.

But I won't. Because you need to see, hear, taste, smell and feel it all for yourself. If you've never been to the National Western Stock Show, go next year. It's time.

Do the new thing.