Here in the U.S., Northerners love to poke fun at Southerners who essentially shut down their cities when it snows.  I realize it must seem funny, but folks in the lowest half of the contiguous 48 are not very used to driving on roads with sheets of ice.  Usually, if we’re lucky, we get snow maybe once a year in Dallas … but it almost never sticks.  So this past entire week when everything was covered (for us) in a sizably thick blanket of pure white powder several inches deep it was a really big deal!  It felt like a combination of Colorado and Minnesota for me:  Colorado with the glistening, soft powder which sinks past your ankles and Minnesota with negative degree temperatures that just pierce your bones.  Everyone hunkered down, after having once again inexplicably bought out all the eggs, bread, and milk.  As the power grid was already taxed and Texas was nowhere near prepared, “rolling brown outs” were put into place.  From what I read on social media, neighbors were gracious and tried to conserve for others, just as we did.  Pipes dripped as many were plunged into frigid darkness.  Traditionally, our house is ALWAYS the one to have no power … even when others on our own block are OK.  Like a general I drilled my little family about the importance of keeping our electronic devices fully charged in the event of a power outage.  By some miracle, this is the ONE INSTANCE in which we were blessed to have retained our power during the entire time.  Each day we marveled at the additionally new-fallen snow, and how bright and quiet it seemed to be.  One of our wolfies skidded over our koi pond and slid with her young legs out like the scene from Bambi.  The waterfall was still running underneath layers of ice but it was completely frozen over.  Since we are not a big ski family, I realized we had no proper gear for even going outside.  Mittens and gloves became sodden fast.  The last time I sent our little one out she was wearing socks on her hands.  I have a few vague memories of my folks doing the same to me and then putting my hands in plastic bags and wrapping them together by putting electrical tape around my wrists.  In this picture you can see my little one is rocking a hooded puffer coat.  Oh how I hated coats with hoods!  I was forever removing them and I’d wind up with ear infections.  Thankfully my little one harbors no such qualms.  The late English poet, philosopher, and theologian, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, once said:  “Advice is like snow — the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into the mind.”  I would say that is very much reminiscent of how this past week’s snow was:  it fell softly, dwelt a long time (for Texans), and sank deep into our minds.  A bit like my favorite childhood show “Little House on the Prairie” we were well and truly “snowed in.”  Not only did it reach -10° in some of my friends’ homes, they had to melt snow to boil water, read by candlelight, and use clay pots for heaters.  I believe man-made climate change will impact us all more and more in the future with regard to weather.  My precious family and I were SO lucky THIS time!  However, like the giant piles of snow I gawked at here in parking lots the first time I can ever recall, for next winter my husband and I are thinking of perhaps investing in a serious home generator,  as we were banked.