As much as I have a hard time with winter at times between the cold, the darkness, and winter blues, this past snow storm brought my heart so much happiness!

The brown, bleak landscape turned into a sparkling winter wonderland overnight. The silence that envelops the land after the first snow storm is one of the most calming and magical moments. A stillness settles in as everything is in sort of a hibernation mode under the blanket of snow.

That stillness transfers to my soul and it makes me want to crawl under my own blankets and just cuddle and hibernate.

That stillness wasn’t long lived as my kids had to go play out in the snow and it flashed me back to all the childhood joy of bundling up and playing in the powder, snowball fights, kicking icicles or having icicle fights, sledding, fort building and snow angles and all the fun that comes with a fresh snow!

My partner and I decided to take the kids sledding so we got the crew all bundled up and loaded up to go to his parent’s house. I realized later I should have explained what type of sledding I meant, as they thought it was down a hill type sledding when in fact it was getting pulled behind a four wheeler kind while sitting on an old Studebaker hood type of sledding.

My littlest was very hesitant after watching the first two kids take a spin around the yard, but with a lot of reassurance and me promising to hold onto her, she bravely tried it. After the first spin, she was hooked and wanted to go again, even wanting to go faster.

The shrieks of joy and excitement from all the kids while sledding was like music to my ears! There is nothing like experiencing something with children and seeing it through their eyes.

Adulthood can wear a human down. We have responsibilities, work, family, finances, mental and physical health concerns, but winter seems to bring a type of blues to a human where you go into autopilot mode during the day and then hibernate as soon as you get the opportunity to be indoors.

Random winter thought…Growing up in Minnesota we called it shoveling snow and I could never figure out why it was called ‘scooping’ here in Nebraska. Well after this big snow storm, I can attest there was no shoveling, but lots and lots of scooping trying to get cars unburied from the piles of snow the snowplows moved. I am definitely not a kid anymore and scooping/shoveling is not as easy as I remember it being when I was a kid.

Playing with the kids outside reminded me that sometimes you have to go out and enjoy the season! To make the best out of winter as there is so much to find joy in and refresh a soul insteading of getting stuck on the downside of the cold and darkness and so much shoveling snow.