Jinxed or Blessed?

Laura just wrote a post about how she just really doesn't like the snow, and it got me to thinking.

I definitely understand not liking the snow. I'm not sure I like it. But then, I'm not so sure I don't, either. I'm usually pretty decisive about things... But, I'm really conflicted abou this snow thing. I needed to contemplate it and maybe post on it... (Am I the only one who thinks better in print?)

But, seriously, it's too important a subject for a snap judgement, right? Weather, after all, is a divine creation!

So, thinking out loud here (so to speak). I am considering snow.

I have very few childhood experiences with snowfall for it to have made an early impression on me one way or another. I grew up in the south, and it was a very rare occurrence, which may have lent it an air of the unattainable. But, it was a generally positive thing, if a little mysterious.


By the time our family moved to Colorado, I was in my mid teens and snow meant one of two things: 1) a possible snow day, free from school, or 2) a chance to socialize, meeting up with friends to go ice skating or sledding or whatever. So, it had nice connotations, but ones that didn't really relate to the snow, itself.

By the time I was in college, it was a nuisance because it kept me from doing things I may have wanted to do. And, then, by the time I was married with children, it became the cause of messes to be cleaned up, snowball fights to be refereed, and boots, hats, and mittens to be kept track of. And mud. We have a lot of mud here where we live.

Ugh.

But, still... Even with all that said,
* I love to watch the scenery outside my windows fill up with crisp clean snow,
* I love the silence of it filling up the landscape when nothing else in my world is quiet,
* I love the sound of its squeaky crunching under my boots when I go outside,
*and I love to look up into the sky and see the millions and trillions of flakes falling from ~ where?
* The Hand of God...

But, I don't particularly like to play in it.
* Though I'm a Coloradan, I'm not a skiier.
* I might like to go sledding if I didn't have the cold fingers and noses of toddlers to contend with ~ but by the time little cold noses and fingers are not an issue for me, I'll be too old to consider catapulting myself down an icy hill.
* I'm not afraid to drive on icy roads (though maybe I ought to be), but I do hate the mess it makes of my car, and entryway, and the kids' coats and boots....

These are all the thoughts that pelted around inside the landscape of my brain when I first started contemplating my real, deep down opinion of snow.
At first thought, and the last thought, I was still conflicted.

But, that was yesterday.

This is today...

The first thought I had when I saw it falling outside our window, in great big feathery flakes was:

Whoopee! Let's get some hot chocolate going, kids! Let's see who can be the first to find a matched pair of gloves!

So, yes, Laura, I guess I actually do like the snow.

*:o)

(But, ask me again how I feel about it right around the end of February...)