feeling a bit chatty

 

It's supposed to snow tonight, and I really hope it does.  Last year was a big snow year, but for some reason we were caught unprepared, without proper coats and boots for all.  This fall, determined that everyone should enjoy lots of snow-play, I purchased boots and coats for my most enthusiastic outdoorsmen and...no snow.  Ha.  That year we asked for a few more sleds for Christmas so everyone could go sledding, we also got very little snow.  I see a pattern...  Our favorite kinds of snow storms are the ones that dump snow on us and shut down activities for at least a week, but leave us with power and plenty of warning so we can stock our cupboards.  I see now what a tall order that is!  Perhaps it's best that those snow miracles are few and far between; they give us a chance to romanticize about them after the snow melts--"Remember the time it snowed three feet?!" Yes, that was a special one, and all the more special because it's unique.

It's cold here, too, though not nearly as cold as other parts of the country.  We took a walk yesterday to get our blood pumping, and, despite the cold, the boys refused to wear proper coats.  Z, Little M,  and I shivered in our down parkas, but the boys played "battle" in a nearby cemetery, wearing sweaters.  The cemetery has become a favorite place to walk in the last year, when we can motivate ourselves.  It's a quiet oasis (except for my three hooligans whooping and dodging behind the tombstones) in the middle of a crowded city.  My husband came too yesterday, and the brisk walk, conversation, and cold air alleviated some of the stress we have been suffering from lately.  I'm sore today in the best kind of way. 

I've been reading John Muir's Wilderness Essays, and stumbled across this quotation, which is beautiful and hopeful:

"...but from all those deadly, crushing, bitter experiences comes this delicate life and beauty, to teach us that what we in our faithless ignorance and fear call destruction is creation."

Hoping we wake to a dazzling white world...