Winter Storm Q:

Last Wednesday morning, I was going from room to room, getting dressed and gathering up items for the day, when I caught a glance of something peculiar outside the window... I wasn't even aware that it was supposed to snow and there it was coming down in big, fluffy clumps. 

Here in the south, where July's temperatures are exclusively triple digit and summer does not end until mid-November, snow is a rarity. Blizzards are unfathomable and white Christmases are mythic circumstance found in storybooks. Two inches of snow will shut down the whole town early, the news will air nothing but warnings of icy conditions, and every person young or old will go outside and roll a small ball for twenty five feet down the sidewalk in order to build a miniature snowman. 

Snow is magical.

Our bicycles had dustings of the stuff...

I wrote a love note on the back glass while Kyle cleaned off the windshield...

We drove... very slowly.

It was a perfect day for being out in nature and that was what I wanted so badly, but Kyle had a full day of classes and I had homework that needed tending to during the time that we would be exploring, so I searched for bits of our earth around campus...

And took pictures of the stately buildings and things surrounding them...

And sought out folks with umbrellas to photograph...

I watched people studying in the walkways between science buildings...

I walked the bike/walking trails that connect our city and admired the conifers along the way.

I found inspiring messages posted at crosswalks...

And got a cup of Joe for Jo...

And then I met up with this man's feet, and the rest of him, too, and we strolled around to some of the quieter parts of campus.

We encouraged this guy to make his way up the steps to the colosseum where his friends were waiting...

 And I cursed not having a better lens for capturing these beautiful little birds...

Then we decided we simply could not be popsicles any longer and went home to have warm bowls of homemade soup and cuddle on the couch with dry socks and homework pushed to the back of our minds.

 Thank you for the little snow day, Mother Earth. It didn't shut down the town completely, but it did close the school hours before Kyle normally would have gotten out. It blanketed the barren winter cityscape in pure white beauty and shook things up a bit on a very average Wednesday. One of Kyle's environmental geology teachers says that the best week for snow in this area is the first week of March. 

I'll see you then, friend.