First Snow of 5771, Last of 2010

At 9 o'clock yesterday morning I still didn't quite believe it. In fact, we had plans to visit relatives who were in NY city, but had to cancel because we knew a blizzard was on its way. As soon as we made that choice we knew we had to do something fun as fast as possible before we got snowed in, and rushed to go bowling. We paid a discounted price for 2 hours rather than paying by the game, but as we started the second game saw it was time to go. The snow was falling, and falling fast.

Shoveled a little yesterday, more as an excuse to get into it than anything. We knew, though, that anything we shoveled would be replaced in no time. ND commented on the "kippah" on top of one of the trees.

All night we could hear the wind.

I was proud and grateful that I put out tons of birdseed before the storm got too heavy.

Started today with shoveling off our flat-roofed terrace so it wouldn't cave in our roof. Paid a neighbor's son to shovel our walkway. Then ND and I made a snow bird that she calls a snow man. It wasn't good packing snow, so we sort of just carved it out of the piles that were already there. Then we went to dig out the cars. Much of the snow we dumped off the terrace created a mountain on our driveway beyond the cars and out of the way, but some of it blew so heavily onto our Corolla that we could barely find the hood.

Finally we went sledding. Never really done this before, but it was a friend's suggestion. We took a cardboard box because that's what we learned from Caillou, but then our friend arrived and, by then, our box was nicely broken apart. So we shared their sled for awhile, then had cookies and hot cocoa with them. I'll write in a different post about how I've sort of given up sugar, but made a special exception for this. After all, the cookies were homemade apple cookies by a master baker.

Click here if you want to see more about how much snow there was.

4

Just got back from a weekend Hazon conference. Was gone 2 nights... my first 2 whole nights away from ND. She and U. had a fabulous time. I guess we're at a point now when we can do this. I feel like she's grown so much just in time for her 4th birthday... so mature.

Tonight she asked if she could floss like me. I actually had a little disposable flosser from the dentist and it said, "Not for use by children under 4." ND twirled around in a circle and cried out, "I'm so proud that I'm 4 and I can use this to floss!"

I truly have to go to bed now, but please pressure me to write about this conference... there's a lot to say.

I Miss...

Blogging more
writing (almost at all)
more time for exercise and walks in the woods
playing music
writing letters and calling people

Glad to have time to be in Now.

I'm sad to give up all the relatives and friends I should call.

Just got stood up in a phone call to a friend who is often a role model. I'm a little disappointed, but she's always been a teacher for me, and this teaches me that sometimes you have to deal with what's in front of you instead of making a phone call. I think that I do that a lot and flake on others quite often myself. I'm not hurt. I hope others understand forgive me easily too.