Getting into the Holiday Spirit

Couldn't resist posting, even though it's a blurry picture. Took a spin last night down through a part of town that is festively decorated for the season and had to pull out my camera and snap a few moving pictures. The colors are just so pretty. Better pictures to come and they'll look more seasonal because tonight.....snow!!!!

It was unseasonably warm last weekend. In the 60's. All my smarter neighbors put out their Christmas lights last weekend. No, I did not. I waited until today. Now the hours are ticking away. IF I want lovely, twinkly holiday lights to glisten under a blanket of snow in my shrubberies......I must get outside in the 20 degree morning and string them along.

I love snow.
LOVE SNOW!!!
I used to be a mail carrier, delivering mail and packages to over 500 families out in the country three times a week. My route was about 75 miles, half of which was gravel roads. Many, many snowy mornings it was just me and the deer and the foxes. I carried a little black book in my jeep.......farmers phone numbers.
Can't tell you how many times I've been nose-first and deep into a roadside ditch. I'd dial up the nearest farmer and they'd come pull me out with a tractor or pick-up. On the snowiest days I always carried little bags of homemade chocolate chip cookies with me. I knew before the end of the day I'd need to hand them out.......thank-you gifts to my farmer buddies for pulling me out of yet another snowy ditch.

These days I leave the snow challenges to heartier folks. Nice fellas show up at my front door to plow my drive, walks and streets before I leave for work in the morning. When I hear their tractors outside my windows at 4 or 5 AM I just smile and bury myself deeper in my quilts. I no longer pass bundles of letters and bills from my car into frozen mailboxes with cold, gloved fingers. I'm a sales rep at an art studio with 20-foot floor-to-ceiling windows that look out through the twisted trunks and sculpted branches of a forest of old oak trees. Deer bed down beneath their branches in the night. Mornings when I arrive before the sun comes up I stand inside, watching them awaken and paw at the crusted snow, looking for shoots of breakfast grass.It's pretty amazing.

Yeah, I love the snow.
And here it comes.