Snow on snow

I remember singing that song in college and hating the soprano soloist for doing something I couldn't do: sing alone. I have a...well, a thing about being visible. Heck, I blog but very few readers know who I am in real life.  I don't advertise that I blog to most of my friends and family, either. I like to keep myself to myself, if you know what I mean.

Very Victorian of me, really.

Why the bleak midwinter reference? This:

Snowed like the Dickens yesterday. All day long, really. Kinda pretty, although it made me a bit sad. Why?

My poor metal flutterby! He looked so cold, particularly with the snow drifts covering his wings. I wanted to make him a little muffler, and maybe an antennae warmer or two. Don't really know why I didn't; wouldn't have taken long, would it?

So I got out my boots from last year (the boots that saw more wear in one week last January than they've seen thus far this winter) and trudged about once the snow started really falling to take pictures. Then I came in, shucked them and got myself a hot drink (cocoa, you drunks, just cocoa). When I came back, I realized what a charming picture the below made:

and got a shot. Well, all except the bag of shoes hanging next to the tree. Still and all, the tree makes me feel a bit more jolly -- which is an accomplishment, as January sucks like a Dyson. I hate winter, hate it like oatmeal, and I can't wait for spring again. January, in particular, is a hard month for me. It's the trifecta of things I hate: cold, dark and colder still. Blech.

Almost makes me long for April, despite tax season and all.

I haven't knitted in a while. I've been to hell and gone today (got up at 7:15 -- barely a Christian hour, if you ask me -- walked, did my newest volunteer gig, took my laundry to my brother's house as our washer is kaput, nabbed the children and took them to the historical society to see the exhibits -- which was cool -- and then took them home, got my mother, took her home, went out to get dinner. Ate. Logged on to blog. Feh.) I've gotten nothing done in the last day or two.

I was going to finish up the reading I need to do from last year, finish it yesterday, in fact. Then I glued 8 of my fingers together (Don't. Ask. No, really, don't ask.) It took an hour with acetone-based fingernail polish remover to stop looking like a burn victim. And I learned a very important lesson: When working with acetone, if you pour it down a sink, don't, for the love of Baby Jesus, stand over the sink and turn the water on. The acetone fumes will curl your hair. Or burn your nostril hair out, which is what happened to me. Cough, cough.

Whatever, what with de-glue-ifying my hands, I got less read yesterday than on any regular day in my life. Then today...sigh. Running all around.

The argument could be made that I shouldn't be online blogging, I should be offline, curled up in my blankets, doing my reading. I have an awful lot of it to do, you know. Perhaps I should, but I had to blog. I have to get myself back in the writing habit again. I took the holidays off (mostly because my mother drives me to distraction with the holiday hysteria, and it was just too much to ask for me to be both creative and a crutch for my mom -- besides, she's had recent bereavement this year; it was a kindness) and now I have to somehow find the willpower to get up on that pony and get going again.

To inspire me, a picture of warmer weather:

Oooh. Doncha just imagine some sort of crazed but beautiful sea witch living in that cave? What crazed but beautiful sea witch would say no to such incredible water-front property?

Not me, that's for sure.