Everyone is on “snow alert.” No snow yet at 8:25 a.m.  Schools are closed, flights are cancelled. All this in anticipation of what is to come. But will it? I’ll keep you posted!

10:01
A few little flakes are starting to fall now.

Update 11:10 a.m.
It’s snowing!

bella: what is this stuff? i try to catch them with my mouth.

mom says i’m starting to look like a sheep ...

The weather forecast calls for snow tomorrow. Quite a lot if they prove to be right, and that would really be nice. But please let it snow and not that other wintry mix stuff (ice/sleet). Please?

I now have a full blown case of laryngitis. I hate it. It hurts to talk and my tonsils are still swollen. Aspirin does help the swelling some. If I try to yell at the dogs a very strange croaking sound comes out and they tilt their heads and look at me oddly. What is the matter with mommy’s voice? At least it gets them to stop whatever they are doing that I am yelling at them about. Mostly barking. Anyway it’s a pain.

Two nights ago we had some snow that turned to sleet and then froze. As the trees warmed up and the ice melted I took these photos. I hope to be taking snow photos tomorrow. Bella will love it!

Our tree is up and decorated. We cut our own tree this year—a lovely blue spruce—at the local tree farm. Bella thinks she is a present and likes to lay underneath it.

So the house is looking festive, I have more cookies to bake and we are expecting SNOW. Here’s hoping my blog will be decked in white tomorrow!

All three of us in this photo are wishing and hoping for snow!

The weather is confused. We’ll have a really warm day, say in the high 50’s like yesterday,  and then the next day will be in the 30’s. You’ve all heard, no doubt, about the ice storms last week. We barely escaped the onslaught of nasty weather by being a few degrees too warm. “Up the mountain” (as they call is around here) was a different story with downed power lines and trees, just a few miles away.

Not really knowing this, we took a drive on Saturday morning and were greeted by a beautiful sight: tree branches coated with ice, glistening in the sun. Of course there is a power line in my photo! It was like driving through a sparkling Winter Wonderland as the trees at times made an ice tunnel for us to drive through. I got out to take a few photos and and could hear the snapping and cracking of the ice sloughing off the branches. Ice crunched like big shards of broken glass under my feet. Very strange but also very eerily beautiful. I haven’t seen anything like that in years.

Days start out well enough, but they soon turn windy and grey with a smattering of rain. Other than hoping it was snow falling from the sky, the weather suits my mood of late.
capricious |kəˈpri sh əs;-ˈprē-|
adjective
given to sudden and unaccountable changes of mood or behavior

I wonder if this word has any bearing on my astrological sign: Capricorn? If so, I think it sums me up pretty well!

Sunday’s sunrise

I’m not sure what it’s doing out there this morning. It’s still so dark I can’t tell a thing. When I let Bella in a few minutes ago she had a few fluffy flakes stuck to her fur. The sun should be up by now (7:13 a.m.) but it’s not obvious. I haven’t even opened up the curtains yet. What’s the point if you can’t see anything? I don’t like letting the dark in.

In other news, I think I’m coming down with something. My throat has been feeling swollen for a few days now, but this morning it feels like I have golf balls in there. When I was a child it was all the rage to remove children’s tonsils. Almost everyone in my class in school had tonsilitis at one time or another. I clearly remember that they even had a children’s book of Tommy (or whoever) that had a tonsilectomy and how he got to eat a big bowl of ice cream in the hospital. I was envious and wanted to be like those kids.

But, lucky for me (or unlucky) I still have mine. I never notice them until times like this when they are trying to ward off infection. By the feel of them they are really working hard in there. Ugh. Swallowing is not pleasant. But, like the strange weather, this too shall pass. At least I hope so!

Geez, we just had the scare of our lives. We heard sirens blaring and they were coming right down our quiet little road! A fire truck drives slowly by our house like he’s looking for a fire. We dash to the windows and peer across the street at the Murray’s but all looks well there, then over to the Corbett’s at the end of the cul-de-sac. Nope, not there either. The dogs are going nuts and Bella is scared. What is that awful noise mommy? Make it stop!

I look out the window just as he’s driving back past our house and see a figure on the front of the fire truck. It’s wearing red and it’s waving at me. Good grief. It’s SANTA! I wave back laughing with a strange sort of glee. It’s only after he is past our house and I see him stopping in the front of the neighbor’s down the road that I realize the reason for this strange visitation. Oh, now I get it. Probably looking for donations since we have only volunteer fire departments up here. I wish I known what it was all about because if I had I would have run out and given them something.

New Jersey is weird. Scare the living daylights out of people with sirens and horns with Santa aboard. That’s life in a small town!