Snow... not yet, please

Yesterday morning I awoke to a light dusting of snow. It melted by about noon.

How did that make me feel? Well, I actually felt grateful that we hadn't really had much of anything in terms of snow before now. In previous years we have certainly had snow by mid November and much colder weather.

I realized that an adult's perspective on the first snow is so different than a child's. I remember the excitement of looking out the window in the morning, as a little girl, and having that thrill of being able to bundle up and go outside in the snow. The first snow meant you were getting closer to Christmas which was an excitement that was palpable, an excitement that vibrated within you.

Now when I see the first snow, I feel a slow building of dread. I think of driving through storms and of cleaning off the vehicle before you can leave work to come home. I think of cold fingers, cold feet, lack of sunlight, icy roads. I think of this:

Or perhaps this:

 

 Today, however, is a whole different story. Today is warm, sunny, envigorating. I went for a walk to the post office, and then a little farther. I tossed the slowly sagging jack-o-lantern from the front porch and put the wooden bistro set in the shed. I grabbed some more landscape fabric to cover the bed close to the house that I cleared a couple of weeks ago and anchored it with rocks from the back of our property. Now I won't have to fight with weeds in the spring when I want to start planting in there. I put a couple of planks of wood down over the landscape fabric so the oil delivery guy will walk on the wood to get to where he fills our oil tank, rather than ripping away the fabric and defeating my work. (Well, until it gets completely covered in snow, than it won't matter, he will be walking through a narrow path that we carve out of a snow bank for him).

But let's hope that the snow bank waits for a few more weeks, at least.

Lest you think that I am unaware of what is going on in the world, I am thinking about what happened in Paris, and of the many people who intended to go out for a bit of fun on a Friday night and ended up never coming home. There are no words.