Bring it!

It's been a bit of a busy and stressful week. Okay, I under-exaggerated.....it's been a hugely busy and extremely stressful week. So I have to admit, turning this morning into a lazy, lounge around in my pajamas kind of moment, though not originally the plan, felt good and needed all the same....well, at least until 10:30 when I had an appointment for visiting teaching and then immediately after, Brandon's DARE graduation at school.

So I slept in rather than getting up at 5:45 to go to the gym like I've been the doing the past few mornings. (I'm really not a morning person and yet, once I get over that little mind over mattress argument I have with myself every single morning, I've discovered that meeting up with friends at the gym is a really great way to start my morning.) And then after Rebekah drove her car out of the driveway, Julianne ran out to her carpool and Brandon and Lilian made it onto the bus, I padded down the hall to my bedroom, laptop in hand, kicked off my slippers and crawled back into bed...first opening the window blinds so I could watch the falling snow outside while catching up on blogs and email.

I tell you what, it felt magical...probably because it was so needed. But as I watched those fat, fluffy snowflakes fall past my window, I smiled really big as I thought back to how awesome of a winter this has been. I'm sure that most of you know by now of my love affair with snow and any and all things winter. And therefore also of my irritation that borders on the irrational when storms skip my house entirely and and dump glorious winter wonderlands on towns further south (or north, for that matter). And also with friends who then complain mightily about said wintery weather. Don't they realize how lucky they are?? 

The past few winters have been so lackluster, I didn't have any real high hopes for this year. I was beyond thrilled to have a last minute white Christmas and honestly thought that if that was the only real decent accumulation of winter weather we got, well...a white Christmas is a pretty big deal in my book of winter satisfaction. But it didn't stop there. A little past the new year we had a storm come in that dropped enough snow to merit a "snow day" for the school district. And that's saying something in Utah! A good 20 inches within two days. The remnants of that storm continue to stick around to this day a good 5 weeks later. Partially because of a few more storms that have graciously blanketed us with a few inches here, a few inches there. And then also because of the arctic temperatures that dropped in shortly after the big storm. We're talking a couple weeks straight of temps in the negatives that were freezing pipes and causing havoc all over the place. (None here, thankfully.) And since I had bought a couple new coats on after Christmas clearance sales, rather than just endure the cold, I relished it.

(What a difference a few months can make....a drop of 100 degrees! A few days later the temps dropped to -4.)

And then...oh, and THEN...came the freezing rain. I had never seen freezing rain before. Solid ice. Everywhere. What a weird winter weather phenomenon. I was fascinated! All of the fluffy snow was covered with this shiny, thin, brittle layer of shining ice. And it was so pretty! My kids, all of them, had bruises from falling on the ice as they left for or came home from school. And then, if having an actual real "snow day" wasn't enough....the next day after the freezing rain, we had an "ice day" which though didn't result in school cancelled entirely, it did shift starting times to two hours later which made for a short day.

(I was really, very lucky that I didn't have to do much driving that day....)

But then, as if that wasn't all enough...we got a weekend of fog. I'm talking seriously thick pea soup. To the point where I was literally counting exits to know which one I was to take because I could not see. It's a little disconcerting to say the least, to realize as you're slowly making your way down the freeway, that you truly aren't sure where you are...other than you know time wise you haven't gone far enough. So you continue on following that white line, hoping that eventually something will appear out of the fog that will clue you in. And that hopefully that "something" won't be the car in front of you, a big pole, or something equally likely for you to smash into.
 
So here we are on another snowy weekend. And people are whining about the cold and the wet and wishing for spring. It all just makes me smile. This is what winter in Utah is supposed to be about! And winter is not over yet. So until March 20th, the official first day of spring....I say, bring it!

(Sledding down the driveway...how convenient!)