Sometimes you just need a show.

Yesterday our five-year-old daughter taped a handwritten note to our front window for all the world to see. It reads, "Winter end please. To God. Love Lyda."

That about sums up how everyone in our house feels right now. Just a bad case of the winter blahs. Enough snow! Enough cold! I mean, it's been pretty and all, but enough already!

And today was another one of those cooped-up-in-the-house days. Sweat pants and slippers. Soup for lunch. (Did I even brush my teeth this morning?) Hours of work on the computer, until by late afternoon my head throbbed. I was scheming for a hot shower and early bedtime when Jeni said, "Shouldn't you be getting ready for your show?"

"Show?! I have a show tonight? Holy crikey, I totally spaced it." Some days my head is not in the game, and this was one of them.

I inhaled some left-over pasta and put on my game face, even though the thought of actually shaving and dressing for the day at five o'clock didn't thrill me. As I drove to the show, I gave myself a pep talk and shouted my gratitude for a paying gig.

When I arrived at the school gym, the women from Hickman Mills Parents as Teachers were there to greet me with hugs. (Hugs always help boost my energy -- like spinach for Popeye.) But, they all seemed to be operating on deflated resignation that the cold and snow would keep the crowd away.

At ten minutes to show time, there were about 12 people milling around the gym. The prospects looked bleak. But then people started to trickle in. And more came. Then more, still. We delayed the intro five minutes as families in their parkas came streaming in. Then, another five minutes. There were well over a 100, maybe close to 150.

Finally, I strummed a few chords to grab their attention and off we went. We danced. We sang. We laughed. We rocked. Moms and dads and grandmas grooved. Sisters and brothers boogied. Diapered ones toddled around to their own beat. It was an all-out mid-winter antidote-to-cabin-fever bash!

It's as if everyone in that room blended their voices together in perfect unison to shout to the universe, "Hey, we've got all the warmth we need right here! We've got song! We've got dance! We've got friends!"

Sometimes you just need a show to kick out the blues.