SNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The first snow of the season is here. Yesterday after work I raked the leaves on the patch of lawn in front of my house. That took about 2-1/2 hours!!! geez! Well, I'm glad I did it because I knew that snow was coming, and yessiree, it delivered. Last night about 11pm-ish I noticed there were some flakes falling so I went out onto my back deck and watched it come down. So nice. And then went to bed, knowing my yard would look different when I woke up.

I don't know why, but this snowfall makes me very happy! It's my first snowfall in Grand Rapids, and ok, so it's not a big one, and it will probably not stay around very long at all, but still... I get to see another season change! That's why I LOVE Minnesota and would have a difficult time leaving, unless I moved to a place that was similar in climate/seasons. Now, the extreme cold I CAN live without, but the four seasons? Nuh-uh. I even think it's much more pronounced here than it was in Ada. It's more natural. In Ada you knew the seasons by the crops being planted or harvested, or what parts of fields were being burned -rarely by the natural environment around you. Here, you only have to look outside and see a group of trees and know what season it is. It is just absolutely gorgeous!

So, I am one of those weirdos who likes snow. I don't like shoveling it or driving through it, but I like it nonetheless. I like the smell of it, I like the look of it and I like the texture of it -and how it can "hush" everything when it falls silently or stir everything up when there's some wind mixed in with it. How exciting will it be to watch the lake freeze-over here and then the subsequent thaw?? Holy cats. I can hardly contain myself. :-)

Today I'm palling around with a friend who's visiting and I hope we can go up to the Suomi Hills area and maybe not hike (owww, my toe!!!), but drive through this awesome scenic route I found through there one day. I bet that is absolutely beautiful right now!! I need to get myself a camera that can take pictures in the way I see things...Almost every day there is something I wish I could capture on film/digital that is impossible to do with my blackberry or my cheap-ass Kodak easy-share black friday special. I think I just thought of a Christmas present to myself. :-)