Coming down from the holidays

Christmas has come and gone, and a new year {2013} is upon us. How does the time pass so quickly? As a kid, I complained how slowly time seemed to drag -- it felt like an eternity from one Christmas to the next, one birthday to the next. And now, years fly by at an alarming rate. Wasn't I just in high school? Didn't I just graduate from college? It couldn't really be six+ years since our wedding day. Surely I'm not closing in on 30. And yet...

So, I think I may have enjoyed the Christmas season and all its yummy cookie-ness a bit too much this year. In my defense, it's very cold here so my body is just stocking away food to provide me with an extra layer of warmth...right? Yep, going with that. But I digress.

Anywho, now that we are living in Indiana, we experienced our first "semi-white" Christmas. I say "semi-white" because the snow didn't fall until we had gone to bed on Christmas night but technically speaking, it DID snow on Christmas. We got 13 inches of snow between the late evening hours of December 25 and through the morning of December 26. It was so beautiful, our own little winter wonderland. The city declared "essential travel only" so the streets were quiet and our little corner of the world just seemed to stand still. The tranquility brought on by freshly fallen snow is truly special. Snow has a way of turning the ordinary extraordinary. The trees outside our bedroom slider were transformed into graceful pieces of art overnight. I loved watching the snow drift lazily down, landing softly on my gloved hand, alighting on our dog's furry head, catching the streelamp's glow. Once the initial awe wore off, the necessary task of clearing our walkway and digging a path for our cars in our driveway commenced. Thankfully, we had purchased the proper tools before the storm hit, so while daunting, the snow was cleared from our doorway and my car was successfully dug out.


The view outside our bedroom slider 12/26/12

  

13 inches of snow!



After the shoveling



So there you have it, our first real snow experience. We got about 3 inches the week before, but it melted away in time for this to fall and I've been assured that we have officially been "inducted" into a real Indiana winter. In fact, this last snow was more than they normally get at one time (and the little town we live in just outside of the city proper got the most snowfall out of the whole state!). We are now proud owners of ice scrapers, a snow shovel, a bag of salt especially made for melting snow and preventing ice, I have a knee-length coat, we both have snow boots, we wear long underwear under our clothes, and I had my first fishtailing experience. {Wouldn't recommend it - it's terrifying to lose control of your vehicle and know that the best thing you can and should do is just let the car correct itself and hope for the best...oh, and don't overreact. Right.} Thankfully, I came out fine but goodness, that was scary! From what we hear, the real "fun" begins when the ice storms hit. Doesn't that just sound all warm and fuzzy? Ice storm. Yuck. That's when the danger of black ice becomes really problematic, which is very dangerous and an aspect of winter that I'm certainly NOT looking forward to. I'm sure we'll learn in time, and all we can do is be as prepared as we can be, pay attention, and heed warnings of inclement weather.

Backing up a bit... We had a lovely tree this year purchased from a local tree farm. It was about 7 feet tall and had a very nice shape. I just can't get over how much less trees cost here! The same tree in in CA would have run us upwards of $90, I'm sure, but we only spent $40! Well worth every penny.

Kobe sitting proudly with our Christmas tree

Hope you all enjoyed the holidays this year with your families and friends! It was a bit quiet around here for us, since we didn't have the opportunity to go home and our friends all went to their respective homes once finals were over. Admittedly, it was a different time. This was the first family-free Christmas for us, so it was a season of change. We did have a nice time, though, enjoying Christmas movies, festive drinks, tasty food, and each other's company. One of Jason's professors invited us over to share Christmas dinner with his family so we were not alone on Christmas day, which was so thoughtful and sweet. We also enjoyed a lovely Christmas Eve service at a local church, so all in all, while different, it was still memorable. We hope to spend next year's holiday with family but we shall see what the new year brings!

So yes, on this 3rd day of January, the tree is now untrimmed and the decorations are back in their boxes. Christmas is over for another year, but for the first time, we have a snowy winter ahead of us :-) Happy 2013, and here's to hoping that our days are merry and bright the whole year through, not just in December.