Winter

I grew up in Newcomb, NY... it is right in the heart of the Adirondack Mountains and we had winter from October until April (and sometimes May... it snowed the day of my Junior Prom, May 9th... just {ahem }a few years ago!) so I'm used to winter. We used to get so much snow that we could slide off our garage roof... we couldn't see the road because the snowbanks were so high (backing out of our driveway was a trick and a half)... the branches on the big pine tree in front of our house were almost vertical from the weight of the snow.

Now, I live a little farther upstate, about an hour from the Canadian border and the winter weather, while not quite as severe as Newcomb's, is quite similar... here we only have winter from November til March. But something has happened to our snowfalls... they get less and less each year. Today is January 13th and normally by now we have snowbanks, our pool is just a white bump in the backyard, and I should have to leave for work ten minutes early so I can brush the snow off my car. Instead, we had a "big storm" predicted for yesterday and got a grand total of three inches of snow... and that includes what we already had! This is what the big sandbox in our backyard looks like right now...

and this is what it should look like...

...see it over there on the left, all covered with snow?

I miss the winters of old. I miss the snow... I miss the weather reports that promised a Nor'easter... and then delivered!
I miss snow days... you know, the ones where you go to bed thinking "maybe" and you wake up to the local weatherman announcing that your school is closed... ah, the whole day before you, to do what you wish. Make soup, watch the birds flock to the feeders, bake cookies, do some crafting, watch soap operas and HGTV... providing the power doesn't go out, of course.

I even miss the power outages. Not the little flicker and then the power is out for a few minutes... I mean the ones where the power is out for hours... not days, mind you... I've done that, not quite as much fun... but a few hours is okay. Now let me explain that we have a woodstove so when the power is out we have heat, and we have a gas cook stove so we can cook and bathroom... all you can really do is make a cup of French Vanilla cappuchino, get comfy on the couch and read a book or knit or do the crossword puzzle in the paper or catch up with your magazine reading or if you are not alone you can play Backgammon or Scrabble or cards. And you can always go outside and build a snowman...