snow, finally

It's been a mild winter so far.  We've had two or three light snow showers, sure, but nothing like we usually get here in New England.  Two years ago today I posted this, and I remember the snow piles on either side of our driveway were so high I couldn't even throw shovelfuls up onto them, try as I might.  There was literally no place left to put all the snow.  Trucks were carrying snow into the Boston Common just to get it off the roads.

This year?  This year is nothing like the winter of 2011, at least not so far.  And while I'm not asking for piles of snow higher than my head (please, no), I wasn't that crazy about it being 60 degrees (SIXTY!) on Monday, either.  What is this, Florida?  Southern California?  If I must put up with the crazy drivers and the abysmal roads and the politics of Massachusetts, give me a crisp New England winter, please.

So naturally, I was rather pleased when I awakened to this scene on Wednesday morning:

The neighborhood was blanketed in two or three inches of snow, and it was quiet and calm and beautiful.

{I took a picture of our favorite house on the street like a creeper.  Our neighbors have the nice brick house on this little cul-de-sac.  We have the not-so-nice brick house across the way from them.  But we keep hoping someday ours can look a little more like theirs.}

This morning Nell and I went grocery shopping in sub-twenty-degree weather.  I bundled her up and she positively wriggled with excitement as we dashed from the car to the warmth inside of Trader Joe's.  She gasps at the cold air, but she loves it - as long as she's snug against me and can burrow her face into my neck whenever she needs to.