Snow

It always amazes me how everything changes when it snows. The obvious things are the temperature, the fact that the snow turns nature from its greyish brown, late Fall colors into black and white ~ or totally white, depending on how much snow is there. All of a sudden there seems to be a lot more light as whatever faint Winter’s sunlight is there gets reflected by the snow.

But it goes a lot further than that.
A couple of hours after the first snow has fallen, the removal of it from highways and freeways is in full swing. Sand or salt are spread on the streets, which, combined with the carefully moving traffic turns the once white flakes into a muddy slush, before it eventually disappears. Or at least that is what everybody who needs to go places and do things is hoping for. The worst case scenario would be for the slushy substance to freeze up again ~ but let’s not go there...

Indoors the heater is purring away. My heater burns natural gas to heat the house. I like that. It means that you can get close to the heater to get really warmed up. It is also as close to instant warmth as you can get; turn it up, and there it is.
The disadvantage is that while it is nice and cosy right around the heater, the farther you get away from the heater, the colder it gets... So with hot tea close at hand, I make sure not to wander off too often.

The cats are not amused. This cold white stuff that gives way when they walk on it, that they cannot properly dig into ~ that doesn’t actually allows them to bury their droppings ~ is no fun. As of now, the litter box is still no option ~ I wonder how long they will brave the weather before they give in and stay in the relatively warm kitchen instead of braving the cold...
There has been snow for a couple of days now, and already the cats are bored. Not willing to get out, they burn their energy chasing each other around the house.

It seems that as soon as the first snow changes the atmosphere, it signals that the time to turn inwards has arrived. To look back at the goals you reached, or maybe didn’t reach... To evaluate whether to set these same goals for yourself, or if there are other, different, maybe even more important things to achieve.
To start pondering and planning as to how to go about reaching the new goals you set for yourself.

Or to just gaze out the window ~ watching it snow...