It’s Snowing in Vegas!

Seriously! We woke up late this morning, looked outside, then looked a little harder. It was flippin’ snowing! We were outside in short sleeve shirts just yesterday! You’d think we’d never seen it the way we stood at the window and shivered admired it. We do occasionally get some flurries but rarely anything that sticks.  And every few years we’ll get a bit that will cover the grass or bushes. But rarely does it ever snow during the day AND for several hours AND stick.

I spent the morning doing what I meant to do yesterday – covering our plywood and scraps (being saved for raised beds) with tarps, hiding our veggie beds under layers of leaves and covering them with anything I could find (plastic painter’s tarp discovered in our garage) – and started to realize something as I was traipsing thru the snow. *It didn’t feel that cold!* Only my fingers were chilled from scraping snow off some of the wood. Holy moly! I think I’ve acclimated!

And guess what! We haven’t turned on our heater yet! Did you hear that, Jennifer? I can see my breath and it’s still off. Who you calling a wuss now? Justin and I are wearing long john’s and many layers. We’re chilly but feeling okay. Zeb is acting like we’re crazy. He’s only wearing long johns to please his mama, otherwise he’d be running around barefoot without much more than a tshirt.

We did all our errands today, despite the constant snow. And I must say: I was lacking any Christmas Spirit until today. Climate change has a funny way of making me merry. (??) Up until now, we’ve had a half decorated tree and a partially decorated mantel (still lacking its stockings). Other than a homeschool co-op where Zeb made a graham cracker house and occasionally suffering through carols on the radio, we’d done nothing else.

But now I’m feeling like making up for lost time! We’ve been talking about doing another “unplug” week where we all take a break from computer, blog, email, video games and TV (unless it’s a family thing, like playing Wii or watching a movie together ).  Now it’s decided: Starting tomorrow we’re all going to power down until after the New Year to allow us to focus on the holidays and each other.

To kick things off and in celebration of the snow, we made paper snowflakes after dinner. We did it around the candles, to test the warmth they give off. (Not enough to be worth it, Elizabeth.)

Over the next few days we have plans to make salt dough ornaments, watch Christmas movies, read stories (we may even light the gas fireplace for that one) and hopefully get some more decorations up. I also have some Christmas presents to sew and some other crafts to accomplish. Not to mention a little holiday shopping. Then there are get-togethers and Christmas parties with friends and family. For New Year’s, we’re going to write a time capsule letter for our future selves to read next December 31st. And sometime soon I’ll be building our raised beds and digging the holes for the trees.

So friends, this will be my last post of the year. I’ll be back very early in 2009 with lots of photos and probably some stories. And I’ll probably still update my Twitter (in the left sidebar) by text when I remember it, so you can follow me there.

Happy holidays, whichever you may happen to celebrate. And see ya next year!