My White Christmas

Growing up on southern California, I have never spent much time in snow. It did fall a couple of times near my house, but that melted before it even touched the ground. When I moved to the Sacramento area I thought here was my chance to enjoy some real winter weather. It wasn't that far to ski resorts and snowshoeing paths and it seemed like it would be simple to figure out what these things were about. Then life happened and I very rarely had time to drive up the mountain and no time to attempt these things.

Now, I live in Reno. Reno's elevation is 4,400 feet above sea level, so it's considered high desert. It gets cold here and I'm still not used to that, but what I do find exciting (for now) is that it snows here! This seems amazing to me. Actual pieces of frozen material fall down on me when I go outside! I know, all of you who have lived where it snows are making fun of me. Everyone tells me I'll grow to hate the snow. I know I probably will. I've already realized it completely curtails my ability to go rock collecting. But at this point, the snow is just something unusual and amazing to me. I can't believe how pretty it makes everything, even my crappy neighborhood.

I moved here to Reno at the beginning of November and they were having an unusual warm streak then. It was sunny and fairly warm and everyone went around in short sleeves. Then the weather changed. It turned cold and just being outside and breathing hurt my lungs. Then a few days ago, a light dusting of snow fell. The cats stared out the windows, bemused, and I ran outside in my bare feet to get a picture of it. It mostly melted off when the sun came out and then another light dusting fell again. It's been going on like this for a few days and then this morning I looked outside and it was white!
Snow must have been falling all night since the ground outside is completely covered. What a Christmas surprise-my first heavy snowfall! I actually live in a place where there are such things as white Christmases. It is incredible. It is amazing. It is cold! I ran outside as soon as I noticed the coating of white and didn't take the time to grab my shoes. My poor little feet about froze off. Now I sit starring out the window, watching the snow continue to fall. It has been going on and off all day long and the snow keeps piling up. Maybe I'll go out and make my first snow angel...

Comments

Post a Comment

Due to a large amount of spam, all comments are moderated before they will appear on the blog. Any links will be deactivated and deleted.

Popular posts from this blog

Creek Dividing the Pacific Plate and the North American

Image
Creek Dividing the Pacific Plate and the North American Originally uploaded by AlishaV Near Parkfield, California, standing on a bridge looking at a creek flowing down the San Andreas Fault, which is the border between the North American and Pacific tectonic plates. There were swallows swooping all around us and the sun was warm yet gentle. Plus I was hoping for an earthquake :)
Read more

Personality Type

Someone I know recently mentioned that she took the Myer-Briggs personality test and wondered what other people's results would be like. Well, I hadn't thought about that test in several years. The basic premise behind the Myer-Briggs test is that everyone can basically be grouped into 16 categories. Your answers on the test are supposed to show whether you are an introvert or extravert (I or E), an intuitive person or a sensing one (N or S), follow your feelings or think stuff out (F or T), and are a judger or a perceiver(J or P). The combinations of letters make 16 different basic types. In my first year at college I took a class on career planning and they had us take several of those sorts of tests. On the Myer-Briggs test, myself, and three other people out of the entire class were categorized as introverts(I was an INTJ with a close call between N and S) everyone else was considered an extravert. With the extroverts gathered together and the introverts gathered toget
Read more

The Trona Pinnacles Aglow

Image
This was a boring shot of the Trona Pinnacles, carbonate towers near Trona, California that are similar to those at Mono Lake. It was early morning, but a bit past the best time to take a picture so the area was really heavily shadowed with many bright spots. I played with the picture using photo-editing software and brought out that natural glow that was hidden by the glare. I liked the picture a bit, but wasn't really into it until I set it as my desktop background for a while. The different tones the picture takes on as the computer boots up, then warms, then as it gets turned off, makes the picture turn from earliest dawn to sunset at various points and I've just fallen in love with the variations.
Read more