Thanks and Snow

Thanks to everyone who stopped by to read my father's story.  It was a fun experience for me, and Dad enjoyed all your comments.  (So did Mom, she checked to make sure everyone was being nice.)  I had no idea so many of you were signed up as donors.  It's good to know there are so many out there!

Back here in Flartopia, there's been pretty much one topic of conversation: SNOW!

Since I grew up in the snow belt of northeastern Ohio (Geauga County, for any who know the area), I tend to pooh-pooh the typical panic that seizes most of the locals here when snow is forecast.  While they were huddled inside with their precious stashes of bread and milk, Miss Chef and I snapped a leash on Rosie and went for a good long winter's hike.

This was supposed to be a picture of Rosie, but she was moving too fast!

Oh, there she is...check out that huge ruff of fur helping keep her toasty warm.  This is Rosie kind of weather!

As you can see, there were already three or four inches, and it was still snowing heavily.  It snowed all day Monday.

Oh, did I mention that Miss Chef and I both had the day off?  Yes, a snow day, just like the kids!  Besides catching up with some projects, like hanging curtains, we played in the snow, made pigs-in-a-blanket (or, as Miss Chef insists they're called, peekaboo dogs), and snuggled under the blankets on the couch in front of a crackling fire and watched Twelfth Night (with Ben Kingsley, Helena Bonham Carter, and Imelda Staunton, who played Dolores Umbridge in the Harry Potter movies).



"Jove and my stars be praised!  Here is yet MORE SNOW!"

Now, although I pooh-poohed the frenzy and panic about the snow, I still have to grant serious respect to the aftermath.  Because around here, snow doesn't stay snow for long.  Tuesday morning, we woke to streets and driveways plastered in a quarter inch of smooth, slippery ice.  Thanks to my early years of driving in snow, I was comfortable enough with the concept of sliding stops and turns to ease my way out of the neighborhood onto the main roads, which were pretty well cleared.  For a southern town, Charlotte does a pretty dang good job of getting the roads cleared of snow and ice.

Today, three days later, there's still tons of heavy, slick ice around.  Avoiding the slippery driveway, we've reduced our lawn to a sea of mini icebergs.

This is what that lovely layer of snow looked like this morning, after a few rounds of thaw and refreeze.  Fluffiness has turned into a glistening glaze.

The sun hadn't quite come up yet, before I left for work, so I wasn't able to fully capture just how striking the reflected light is.  On the drive into work the past few days, I've had to keep reminding myself to watch out for slick patches, because I find this smoothed-over look so mezmerizing.

Charlotte city schools finally went back today after three days out; some other counties in the area were still out today.  I don't envy those teachers trying to get their students re-focused enough to make up for lost time!

Well, as I said, that's pretty much all that's been going on around here.  I did also want to re-invite everyone to play along with our Postive Things meme.  After re-perusing the Happy Frog blog, I realized that the number of positive things is not fixed...so don't feel you have to fill up or limit yourself to 15!  Thanks to Dillypoo for playing along in December.  I wonder if we'll have any more join us this month?