Daily Archives: December 23, 2007

General

Winter Well and Truly Begun

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8 78%  25%  0mph SW bar 29.86 steep rise winchill 8  Winter

                        Full Cold Moon

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve.  Christmas will come to a snowy world here in Andover, a white landscape for the celebration; the moon on the crest of the new fallen snow does give a lustre of mid-day to objects below.

We spent a quiet evening at home, reading and watching the Vikings, frustrated again.  Perhaps they’ll pick their game up next week.  We’re into the the second week of the nutrisystem and I’ve gotta say it seems like a good plan.  The only negatives so far are that some of the food isn’t great–not bad, but not great–and I still get hungry late in the night.  Like right now.  The upside is that Kate has lost 4 pounds and I’ve lost enough to not feel squished into my jeans anymore.  I’m going to weigh myself at the end of the 1st month and the end of the 2nd.  I do feel lighter, better.

After Christmas we come to our version of the Mayan’s five useless days at the end of the year.  These have always been days when I’ve chosen to focus research on a topic of special interest.  This year it will be immortality.  There is this novel that keeps trying to get born and it has something to do with immortality although what I don’t know.

This is a special time for me, a time to think, to consider the year past and the year to come.  I love the snowed in , cold outside feeling.  It’s just right for this kind of inner work.

Weather +Climate

A Snow Day

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14  83%  25%  3mph  WNW  bar 29.60 steep rise  windchill11  Winter

                                      The Full Cold Moon

Snow began in the early morning and it has kept on steady since then.  The winter brown where grass had begun to peak through our first snow cover is gone, replaced with a carpet of white.  Most of the boulders in our garden tiers have disappeared.  It is quiet.

From where I sit as I write this the magnolia, the grey dogwoods, the red and white oaks have changed from their summer green clad to a seasonally appropriate white.  These days, the essence of what it means to live in northern latitudes, change the landscape from the faded browns of late fall to a soft and fluffy world of unexpected joys.  The bird feeders have small caps of snow. 

It may be, at our house,  a year without Christmas, but it is not a year without joy or holiness.  Both have come today, the second day of winter.   Blessed be.