The Weekend We Got Snowed In- A Cozy Little Glimpse of My Town and Life

I can scarcely believe the new year is here!  Today I am inspired by cozy little Winter scenes and freshly fallen snow.  Do you love it too?  As I sit here writing, a cold wind is howling outside my bedroom window.  The snow is getting deeper and it seems as though a blizzard is upon us.  Living in Michigan I am no stranger to snow, but this year is different. The high temps for the day are going to be in the negatives (around a -2 degrees F) with lows of -15!  If the snow keeps piling up, I would not be surprised if we got over a foot of it! I am not complaining one bit.  I actually sort of like being cozied up inside with a blizzard a brewing out there.  The only problem is I won’t want to do my walks.  With the wind chill it is way below zero out there and that does not make for good walking weather!

For those of you who don’t know, I don’t live at “the cottage” full time yet.  Until I am married, I sort of live in the “messy middle” as the author SARK says (whom I have been in a writing course with the past few months).   I spend most of my days and nights at the cottage with Matt (cooking and cleaning, decorating, painting and redoing, and doing all sorts of other cottagey type things : ) ), but often walk home late at night.  Did I tell you I LOVE walking in the snow at night?!  It motivates me to walk further and further because it feels as if magic is in the air.  However, in this weather I will be taking a walking hiatus.  I walked the other day when it was about 10 degrees out and that was cold enough thank you very much ;).

As the wind whirls outside my window I am reminded of a couple of weekends before Christmas when Matt and I were snowed in our neighborhood.  It was like something right out of a cozy Thomas Kinkade painting, so I thought I would share a photo and a little story about it with you to transport you right in to one of the cozy little worlds that Thomas loved to create.

It happened on a Friday.  The snow was shin deep and the plow trucks did NOT enter our cozy little dead end roads neighborhood.  Our neighborhood is almost like a little community of its own and rarely gets much street traffic.  Especially in the Winter.  The plow trucks did not come until Monday!  Matt tried to get his truck out to come pick me up, but it got stuck.  We didn’t have a snow shovel down at “the cottage”.

I told Matt no biggie.  I would somehow carry the bags of my stored Christmas decorations to the new house by foot.  He didn’t feel like walking (he doesn’t like the white stuff as much as I do).  As I gathered things together the doorbell rang and there stood Matt (much to my surprise)!  He had decided to be chivalrous and assist me :).  Showing off his knight in shining armor skills, with a sack of decorations in one hand, and my hand in his other, he helped me down the steps – just like a man helps a lady out of a carriage in those British period piece movies I love.  But (and I know sentences aren’t supposed to start with But..but when I get to storytelling grammar doesn’t count) he did not want me to have to trudge through deep snow.  I am not too prissy to do it, mind you.  I actually like trudging through it.  So what did he do?  He paved the way for me and he almost fell down the steps into the snow doing it (for sometimes “knights” stumble in their chivalry when trying to impress a lady don’t ya know 😉 ).

He took his big boot and with one swipe of the foot, cleared each step of the powdery snow that had been stacked on it.  He continued to do this on the walkway as he walked slightly ahead of me clearing the way.  His feet were makeshift snow shovels.  I assured him he needn’t do that the rest of the way down the front walk, but made a silent mental note of that moment and a recording in my gratitude journal for the blessing of chivalry :D.

The roads were nearly unspoiled and were as deep with snow as the yards.  The quaint street lamps and house lights lit up the snowy carpet making it shimmer like glittering diamonds.  There were no others on the street.  Not people.  Not cars.  Only Matt and I walking hand in hand with bags of Christmas decor for our first cottage Christmas as home owners.  A quiet stillness was in the crisp air with the only sound being the crunch of our feet on the snow, and our breath.  It doesn’t get much better than this!  I have the picture in my mind as one of life’s simple, yet beautiful moments where time stood still for just a little bit.  This is what living inspired is all about!  Noticing these miracles…this pearl strand of little tiny moments strung together to create a lasting memory.  Everyday Miracles, Marvelously Mundane (a term I have coined here at We Live Inspired)!

At about midnight or so, after decorating part of the cottage with the first set of decor we brought down (we had to bring it all by foot you know!),  Matt walked me home.  Only this time I turned my cell phone on to my Pandora radio Christmas station.  What do you think the first song was that came on?  “Let it snow, Let it Snow , Let it Snow”!  That is quite fitting don’t you think? (you can click those words to hear Frank Sinatra sing the song).

When we finally kiss goodnight

How I’ll hate going out in the storm!  

But if you really hold me tight,

All the way home I’ll be warm.

 

You better believe I blissfully sang out loud (but not too loudly because of the hour) in the streets on the way home.  Matt did not sing, but that is ok.  I am the former choir member of the two of us and have sung my way through all of life’s happy little moments since before preschool.  I get happy in my own little world sometimes and at that moment it seemed as though the world belonged only to us.

Because we could not get the truck out the until Monday, some variation of this went on all weekend long as we went to and fro.  I did not get a photo of the actual moment, but I did get a photo someone took of what our downtown looked like that very weekend.  I am not the only one who felt like I was stuck in a Thomas Kinkade scene.  My Mom (who happens to live in the same neighborhood)  happened to look out her window and caught a glimpse of us walking hand in hand under the street lamps at a distance.  She later told me that the sight of the two of us in the unplowed street looked like one of Kinkade’s quaint little scenes.  So- a little glimpse of the quaint little town where I live for you is coming right up!  Maybe you too will think it looks a bit like something Thomas Kinkade would paint :).

**Speaking of walking in the snow-Have you seen these AMAZING photos of the works of art a man named Simon Beck makes by walking very carefully in the snow for hours?!  If not you have to click HERE to see.  I have never seen anything like his snow art!

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