The End of the Snow Days

I LOVE SNOW! I love the cold weather, staying in a warm and cozy house, the smell of soup simmering on the stove, and the flicker of candles and oil lamps. Christmas is the season I love the most so to include snow and Christmas this year was perfect! We were expecting another Southern storm this weekend and I was hoping for another Christmas day snow that looked like this...



Wishes didn't come true though. My friends in South Carolina and Georgia got slammed with 9 inches of snow and there was snow on the beaches of North Carolina. 49 of 50 states had measurable snow (excluding Florida) but alas, even though it snowed all day Monday, we got very little and ended with an ice storm.

I love the way my house looks when it snows but the view I love most is one from my back porch...



I call these the "ladies choir" because they sing in the Spring with all the birds that come to nest. They sing in the howling winter winds as they sway to and fro and I LOVE the song they sing when there is snow and I get up early in the morning, put a coat on over my pajamas, and go out when the rest of the neighborhood is asleep and there are no cars on the road. If you are really quiet, you can hear them sing a slow whirring song as the quiet cold filters through their branches. It is a beautiful song that seems to whisper, "God was just here... He is alive... He can make all things pure... just look at His majesty" and the sound of it sends a shiver up my spine. The most beautiful song is the one you have to be completely quiet to hear. This one was one of those snows when "He says to the snow, 'Fall on the earth', and to the rain shower, be a mighty downpour. So that all men He has made may know His work, He stops every man from his labor." (Job 37:6-7).

Things did stop... people stayed home, businesses closed, children were home from school... and I loved every minute of it. For a few brief days, we had no schedule to keep, no ballgames to go to, no agenda to take our time. I cherished every minute of it because, as I watch my children grow, I know the days of having them home is growing more narrow and I want to freeze time for a few moments longer. I want them to know that their mother loves them and I want them to grow up knowing I was not anxious for them to be out but that I wanted them here... near me... safe... innocent... child-like... for as long as they could be. I want them to learn, through me, how to love their children. I want them to someday wake up early and walk by bedrooms with children sleeping peacefully and while in their pajamas, I want them to walk outside and hear the still small voice saying, "God was just here."

Winter storm was brewing yesterday and kids home from school = hungry kids all day! I prepped veggies and put on two big pots of soup during the early afternoon and let them simmer and bubble away all afternoon. Put a delicious bread recipe in the breadmaker and left the kitchen to do other things. Result for minimal work was a wonderful ham and potato soup as well as a vegetable beef soup. Leftovers were reheated today and as most of the potatoes were gone out of the vegetable beef soup, I added more boiling water and different pasta's I had and made a delicious "new" soup today that was great with grilled cheese sandwiches... cooked on a cast iron skillet of course!



There is lots of soup left that will be lunch tomorrow and I will freeze the rest for later.

Dessert was wonderful... one can of blackberry pie filling poured into the bottom of a 9x9 casseerole dish. Dump one box dry yellow cake mix on top. Top with pats of butter all over the top. Bake at 350 until top is brown and fruit bubbles to the top. I served this right out of the oven with Breyers vanilla ice cream on top. Too good!