~I am~

The snow began Sunday at midmorning with tiny flakes that seemed to float down and melt in the sky before they even had the chance to hit the ground.  Mike and I had been watching the snow line get lower and lower all morning long.  First the mountains went away and then the Black Canyon, the Uncompahgre Range as well as the Grand Mesa.  Then the adobes vanished into thin air and finally, it came to us here in this valley.  

18 hours after it began the snowfall continued on and on and on.
By 4 a.m. Monday there were 10 inches and counting in all.
The grand total was somewhere in the 15-16 inch range, depending upon where you were.

Mid afternoon Sunday, Mike and Sally took one last walk for the day before the snow came down even heavier.  They walk together in any kind of weather, loyal friends to one another.  Sally is a very fortunate dog.

It was bound to happen, this massive dumping of snow upon us.  We have had a mild winter, well at least up until this past weekend.  Mike and I were able to return to Kansas for a week at Christmas time and not have to worry about any storms along the way.  Old Monarch Pass didn't present a problem at all and even the route home through Kansas along Highway 50 was without issues.  The Front Range folks, those on the eastern side of the great Continental Divide have had their share of snow and then some this season.  Those who live on the Western Slope side have been spared the coldest temperatures and the snow/ice combination.  We've been fortunate, as those kinds of things go yet one thing is for certain.

We desperately need the moisture.  
Even a non-lover of winter like me needs to accept that.

In my now nearly 60-year old memory bank that sometimes appears fuzzier by the day, I have no wonderfully happy remembrances of snow and wintertime weather.  There is absolutely no childhood memory of making a snowman or snow angel, having a snowball fight with friends or  even just saying the words~

"Oh I wish it would snow so I could go out to play in it."
Not sure why I was that way.  I just was.  I only recall little hands that were very cold, bedrooms in our old farmhouse that could freeze water in them overnight sometimes, waiting at the end of our driveway forever for Floyd King to pick us up on the school bus and a deep desire for summertime to arrive so we could finally go barefoot.  

Mike and I were thankful to have returned home from California on the day we did.  Had we got a later start in the week in the journey back home to the mountains, we might have encountered a  bit of a slippery drive.  Somehow as I sit here next to the kitchen window typing this blog post, the thought of our week long stay in the sunny and warm high desert country of California seems like a faraway memory.  In reality, it was only 7 days ago.  Time flies when you living your life.

Today it is back to school after a rare snow day here in the mountains of Colorado.  It has been over a week now that I saw "the 21" and I am anxious to be with them once again.  Our time together is growing shorter by the minute and even though we have 3 months yet together they will not last for long.  We have plenty of lessons to learn about reading, writing, math and of life itself but of one thing I am positive.

We will make it.  

On a totally different note, a word about something I learned while visiting southern California last week.  We watched a video that Mike's aunt had received in her email and it was one that made you laugh and smile, big time.  It was a local weatherman out there who was speaking to a group of "seniors" and giving them his version of getting older and the accompanying challenges that go with it.  He was hilarious and I could have listened to him over and over.  Even amidst all of the laughter and smiles, he stopped to make one very somber and serious statement about getting older.

"You should celebrate getting older because if you are then it means one thing.  YOU MADE IT!"
And how right and true that statement surely is.  How many folks have we all known who did not?

As the "seasons" go in our human lives, I realize that in the short years ahead I will be going into my own personal winter.  By the way and just for the record, I hope it has the chance to last about 30 years or so.  I loved my "springtime" and most assuredly my "summer".  Autumn has been interesting and even though it has had a few challenges along the way, I have loved it as well.  I'm not sure what will become of me in the last of the seasons of my life but whatever it is, why not be ready? 

I am.

It kind of put me in mind of an angel food cake when I first saw it at 4:30 a.m. yesterday.  At the time there was 9 inches of snow on the ground. Several more inches fell before it was all over.

Maybe one of the hottest days I will ever remember in the summer of 2011 on day 2 of the Bike Across Kansas.  I swear that the temperature was about 110 degrees that day with humidity to match it.  All of us had just ridden 50+ miles to get there.  In the cold of winter, this photo looks pretty good to me :)