This past weekend, we got our largest snow fall of the season. It's the middle of April. We got close to twenty inches dumped on us just after the snow from the actual winter was starting to melt away. It was a weird random storm that just popped up and crushed everyone's dreams of the start of Spring. We had a few days of mid forties weather. The sun had been out. What remained of the snow was that nasty grey stuff that everyone hates but are deep down happy to see because that means that Spring is just around the corner.
As the snow accumulated throughout the day on Saturday, I kept looking out the front window and wondered where this was at the start of Winter. Sure we had snow, but it was definitely late arriving. When you think of Minnesota in December you automatically start to think of huge snow banks and kids sledding and canceled school. At least here in the Twin Cities, it was cold no doubt, but the snow just didn't seem as bad as it was a few years ago. At Christmas time, there was just enough snow on the ground to make it feel like winter. There wasn't much of that magical Christmas feel to it.
When you look at a calendar and see that it is April and then take a peek outside and see close to two feet of snow fall over the course of a weekend, it feels like a merciless winter. As much as I love winter, it left a defeated feeling in the pit of my stomach. I thought that I was done shoveling snow until later in the year, but I had to go out a couple of more times to clear the driveway and sidewalk. It wasn't that nice light snow that you occasionally get either, it was heavy and wet. The kind of snow that hurts your back after shoveling it for an hour straight.
But still, when I looked to our front yard and saw that smooth clean look of freshly fallen snow, I still had a thought of how beautiful it looked. I didn't shovel the front walk until Sunday afternoon, and every time I looked out the front window Saturday night, the snow brightened the evening. It reflected the moonlight and the street lights. It reminded me of why I love the winter so much. Even if it was the middle of April.
18 April 2018
14 April 2018
Slogging Through
At the end of December I made both the smartest and dumbest decision I have made in quite a while. I decided to tackle one of the longest most in depth novels ever written: War and Peace. I say smartest decision because it is such an engaging book. There are such wide swings in topics in the book that it feels like at times I'm not even reading the same book. I also say it is the dumbest decision because it is such a long book. Everyone knows that. I have taken one small break in reading it just because I needed to read something different. It was like a palate cleansing.
It has taken me just about four months to get 671 pages of my copy. It is 1444 pages. Still a long way to go. My goal is to get through the book before the end of the year. As it stands, I should be finishing up with it some time in October. I have been getting through the book seemingly in twenty page chunks. There are times when I can only get through ten pages and other times I look and I've read twenty five or thirty. It all depends on the writing.
It has taken me just about four months to get 671 pages of my copy. It is 1444 pages. Still a long way to go. My goal is to get through the book before the end of the year. As it stands, I should be finishing up with it some time in October. I have been getting through the book seemingly in twenty page chunks. There are times when I can only get through ten pages and other times I look and I've read twenty five or thirty. It all depends on the writing.
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