Home again and just in time....

I left my home in South Dakota a week before Christmas and I returned almost three months later. It was a good winter- Christmas with my sister and one of my sons in Denver. A road trip to Texas and meeting Mariam Charis Cleveland- big highlight!  All of my children were able to come and we had New Year's Eve together, although having two babies was a change from our usual parties. Life is all about change. And it's all good.

I had great fun wandering around the southwest and had a month in sunny Tucson- where is snowed and the snow actually stayed on the ground overnight. I took some fun pictures and decided that was my winter.

Ha!

Good morning, Black Hills!

View out my patio doors looking east. 

Out the front door- clearly I wasn't quite ready to open the doors and face the day.

The world awaits!

Finally we have enough snow and the neighbors are burning slash piles from the beetle trees cut last summer.
This is the view from my friend's house. Come back and play in the snow, Val!

Love the snow covered trees

 When I was a little girl in Alaska, I rode to school in a big yellow school bus. And in the winter-well, not the dead of winter because that bus ride was in total darkness!  But in late fall, the trees would sometimes be covered with hoar frost. Perfectly outlined branches were sparkly white against the blue sky. The frost coated each individual branch and made the world a fairy wonderland.

I thought of those Alaskan winters today and realized as a child, I never thought, "Gee I'm lucky to be living in such a beautiful place." People, when they learn I grew up in Alaska, ask me what it was like, "How did you like living in Alaska?"  And my sincere reply is, "Gee I don't know. How did you like growing up in... Brooklyn, Virginia, Wisconsin, etc?"   As a child, I took it for granted that everyone lived in a place that was ethereal in winter. That all kids rode to school and looked across a glacial river toward snow topped mountains that jutted five thousand feet above the valley floor.  That you could skate for miles on frozen fields and ski every weekend- for cheap.

But now I am an adult, to copy St Paul, "I've put aside childish things." I don't want to take anything for granted.  Now I want to be aware of the beauty that surrounds me. I want to be grateful for my good fortune and God's grace to have landed here after my safe world collapsed.  I want to look out my windows and not bemoan the cold and snow but to enjoy my next taste of winter. And it's much easier to have this attitude since I've been in the sunny, warm Southwest for the last three months!

So I'll celebrate winter and appreciate the fun and beauty.

Back on skis again!
On the way home I stopped in Cheyenne and  the Sierra Trading Post Company's outlet store..... new cross country skis!

First since 1971....it's about time. 

Those are my ski tracks! It's only about six inches of snow. 

I love snow! 

In case you missed it, I do live in paradise!