I get a kick from the patterns of life. They don’t always mean anything, but they can be fun to notice. For example, nine years ago I posted Instant Winter, which, among other things celebrates the tiny (meaningless) pattern of the date that day: 12-12-12 (You can arrange the year-month-day any which way you like!) Nine years later, it’s December 12th again, but the year is backwards: 12-12-21
12-12-21 after much shoveling. It was up to 3 feet in places!
That post also celebrated, as its name says, the sudden arrival of winter (late as usual these days). And per that, it arrived late again this year, but when it finally did show up it, came in with a bang (I don’t know about lions in March, but December seems to roar).
11-25-21 and not a drop of snow in sight!
It didn’t come anywhere close to snowing for Halloween, and there wasn’t a flake in sight for Thanksgiving, but it seems certain we’ll have a ton of the stuff for Christmas! Winter and snow cause all sorts of small issues, but many years of conditioning have linked snow and Christmas for me.
12-7-21 It always starts so softly and innocently…
Time to break out the shovels!
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In other news, I’ve been reading books and watching TV shows, and I’d love to tell you about them, but I’ve already gone on long enough for one post.
Stay warm, my friends! Go forth and spread beauty and light.
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Logos con carne 
December 12th, 2021 at 10:11 am
The funny thing is: it’s supposed to get up into the 50s Wednesday, so some of this will go away. Then it may rain, freeze, and we’ll all be sliding around like crazy!
Global warming has made that an especially nasty aspect of winter. The warm edges as we slide into it cause occurrences of rain or melt that freezes (often with new snow falling on top of it which insulated it and keeps it from melting). It turns the world into a skating rink, which is only fun if you’re a kid and not trying to go anywhere.
December 12th, 2021 at 11:08 am
That top photo is from yesterday after I finished shoveling. Things look the same today: clear blue skies, bright sunshine, and 35 degrees (not even noon, yet). With this much snow to keep things cold, I don’t imagine we’ll see too much melt, though. Hope not. The refreezing thing sucks. Time to dig out the bags of salt!
December 12th, 2021 at 11:24 am
If you blogged yesterday your date would be a palindrome.
December 12th, 2021 at 11:35 am
Ha, yeah, it would have been. (Unless someone insisted on the European format, 11-12-21. Regardless, it’s funny with just 1s and 2s. Kinda like a base 3 number.)
December 12th, 2021 at 1:11 pm
Welcome to my blog, by the way. Nice to see you here!
December 12th, 2021 at 12:01 pm
You have remarkable reproducibility in your photo-positioning. One might think you have a camera permanently mounted on a post right… there.
La Neenya gonna drown us, ‘n freeze us, ‘n bring down holy holly hell.
December 12th, 2021 at 1:14 pm
Ha! I’ve been (manually) taking roughly the same photo through the same pane of glass in my office since 2016. I do it when the weather stands out for whatever reason or when the mood strikes me. (Some day I’ll stitch the photos together in an MPEG — I always enjoyed those long-duration time-lapse sequences.)
You’re mostly seeing the effect of cropping them to roughly the same framing. The originals are a bit sloppier.
December 12th, 2021 at 3:51 pm
Then I celebrate your crop, well cut.
December 12th, 2021 at 3:17 pm
Winter here has so far consisted of a few nights where the temperature dropped below 50. Not that I’m complaining.
BTW, how’s the humidifier? Mine for a change is still working from last year. First time that’s happened. It might be because I left the tank full this year. Apparently emptying it in previous years was the wrong strategy.
December 12th, 2021 at 6:54 pm
That’s how it used to be when I lived in Los Angeles. Both climates have their ups and downs. I lived in Las Vegas one summer, and that climate is a bit extreme, although I found I do like the desert. I will say that, when I visit L.A. in the “winter,” and everyone is wearing jackets and sturdy pants, to me that’s shorts and tee-shirt weather. Your blood gets thicker living up here!
Haven’t tried my humidifier yet, but I’ve been thinking I should start running it. Definitely the season of the spark and dry skin now. (I never got around to trying to remove the last of the scale that built up last winter, so I’ve been putting off putting it back in use until I do that.)
December 15th, 2021 at 7:38 pm
The HP laptop I ordered should get here tomorrow. 🤞🏼
December 16th, 2021 at 5:22 pm
And I did — using it now! Set up went smoothly, and it was a Windows 10 machine (I’m not ready for Windows 11 yet). I do love how Edge picked up all my bookmarks and passwords. I hadn’t realized Edge was syncing my data. Cool!
Finally (at least so far), a good home PC experience. May it continue!
December 16th, 2021 at 8:09 pm
So far liking this a lot! But now I have to install all my apps and configure things just right. That’ll take a while…
December 18th, 2021 at 9:54 pm
I love when you say, “it’s supposed to get up into the 50s”—UP into the 50s!
I must say, I’m jealous of the snow. It looks so clean. That said, I did go ice skating last night right here in the dusty desert. (They set up a temporary outdoor ice rink downtown. Pretty cool.) I’m planning on making a little movie out of my GoPro footage once the holiday activity dies down a little bit. Maybe the title will be: “Desert Rats on Ice.”
Well, happy holidays and stay warm and upright!
December 19th, 2021 at 12:03 pm
A very merrie Winter Solstice to you and yours! Chillaxmas starts in just five days and twelve hours. (When I wrote it; even less by the time you read this!)
BentleyMom and I had lunch Friday and were discussing how much we loved the change of seasons. She visits her folks down in Florida for ten days in February, which makes winter even easier to take (and I get to Bentley-sit for ten days). The first snowfalls are always very beautiful. It’s less fun driving in it, and it gets old after three or four months of it, but it all makes spring that much more welcome. I’d definitely rather deal with a week of -20 temps than a week of 100+ temps (although I do like the dry desert heat; lived in Las Vegas for a summer back in 1978).
Up to the 50s would be nice, and we did have a couple days were it did. Then a big cold front moved in, and it’s been teens and 20s ever since. Might warm up to the 30s later in the week. 😀 😀 😀
December 25th, 2021 at 7:35 pm
I am definitely missing that lovely first snowfall of the season. That’s one of the things I miss about Vermont. But rain, I suppose, will have to do.
Keep warm, my friend!
December 26th, 2021 at 8:50 am
We’re almost set up to have our third first snowfall. It got up into the 40s last week and melted much of that big snowfall we had. Just patches of snow.
But it’s 17 degrees out there right now… 😮
December 26th, 2021 at 12:34 pm
That is OUCH cold.
December 26th, 2021 at 12:38 pm
It warmed up to 26 now! 😉
December 19th, 2021 at 4:42 pm
[…] A week ago, I posted about a big snowstorm ushering winter in around here. […]
December 24th, 2021 at 12:52 pm
Christmas Eve Day, and it’s up to 43, and the snow is melting again. Crazy!
December 25th, 2021 at 10:22 am
And now it’s Christmas Day and there is almost no snow!!