SNOW!!!

Ok… I thought I was leaving snow and cold weather behind in the midwest but apparently Seattle had a little surprise for Mike and me. Yesterday morning while Mike and I were sitting on the couch and Mike was drinking coffee we noticed that there was a little bit of a snowflake flurry outside our window. It was charming and peaceful looking and very relaxing for a Sunday morning. I went to make myself some White Christmas tea and Mike and I sat by the window, read, talked, and enjoyed the tiny snowflakes outside. It warmed up later that day, and we forgot about it.

This morning I woke up early and went to the fitness room to run on the treadmill. As I left the apartment building I was hit with a whoosh of cold air and the air around me was chill and crisp and filled with tiny snowflakes. Hmm. Well, it was still picturesque, right? I got ready for work and walked to work. It was still snowing and I was very glad to only be 10 minutes from work instead of 30 like I was last week. The snow was starting to lose any appeal and charm it had, and it was becoming a nuisance. At work, the weather was a primary topic of conversation. A bunch of people worked from home because the freeways were a mess, buses were running slowly and taking alternate routes, and traveling in general was pretty nasty. Throughout the day, most of the time I looked out the window it was snowing. At lunchtime, I noticed that there was about a 1/4″ of accumulation on the ground. When I left work to go home, it was pitch dark and still snowing. I hurried home. I wanted to go to Hallmark to get Christmas cards, so Mike and I went across the street to REI to get gloves and then, with our hands, safely and warmly tucked into our new gloves, we headed out in the snow to go to Hallmark. The wind was so bitterly cold and strong that we almost gave up and went home, but we decided that it would be pretty pathetic if two midwesterners got phased by a Seattle “snowstorm” so we pressed on. (I will say, though, that Michigan doesn’t get the wind that Seattle does!)

Mike and I cut through the mall and went through downtown Seattle on our way to the Hallmark store. It was absolutely beautiful! Red and white Christmas lights were everywhere… strung on trees and lamp posts and buildings. Mike and I laughed because snow of this magnitude (1/2″ by this point) was so unheard of that there were people with cameras in the streets taking pictures despite the wind and the alleys full of swirling, blowing, drifting snow. Mike and I arrived at the Hallmark triumphant for having braved the elements and glad to be out of the wind and snow. We walked around Hallmark for a long time looking at things and picking out cards. Just as we were about to leave, I noticed that they had an entire big shelf of Homegrown Figurines! For those of you who haven’t heard of Homegrown, they are the most adorable figurines EVER, and I am already developing a collection of them. They don’t have very many in the stores in G.R. but they had tons of them at the Hallmark in Seattle! And not only did they have a bunch of the figurines, they also had a bunch of refrigerator magnets and Christmas ornaments. I was completely charmed and got an Endive potato dog Christmas ornament. Mike saw a corn cob seahorse that he liked, so we got those two Christmas ornaments. They’ll be a reminder to us of our first Christmas in Seattle and the first big snowstorm we weathered here! 🙂

Homegrown Collectibles website

We had a cold walk home because this time we were walking into the wind most of the way home, and there were parts of the walk that were just bitterly cold. When we got home and warmed up, Mike put up my little fiber optic Christmas tree and we put our two new ornaments on it. It’s on now, and the fiber optic lights are so pretty!

I’m definitely not a fan of snow or the weather we’re experiencing, but the Christmas tree with our two new Homegrown ornaments makes things better. 🙂