Winter Days & Misty Mornings

Yesterday driving home from the store, I looked down the road into the little beautiful valley I live in.  It was an overcast day–a wintery, gray/white sky kind of day.  I LOVE these days.  That break from the constant sunshine days, but more importantly, that warm nostalgic feeling kind of day.  When you drive down the tree-lined street that in the summer it provides a beautiful umbrella of green leafy shade, but in the winter you see bare trees with dried orange leaves still hanging from them.  You see leaves dancing in the street with the breeze. You can see through the trees into the surrounding hills and homes.  You can see the old pioneer homes, the smoke coming from chimneys, the dirt in the garden tilled and waiting for planting, and somehow you can see calm and peace.   There is so much beauty and comfort for me on those days.  I am overwhelmed by the gratitude I feel for this beautiful little valley, the people who live here, and the ones who sacrificed for me to have it all.

Just when you think you have seen it all and experienced that beauty, you wake up to a misty morning.  Or as my 14 year old said, “are we sitting in a cloud?”  Yes, we are.  We are sitting in a Norman Rockwell painting.  So being the pansy to cold that I am, I grabbed my daughter’s pink snuggie (courtesty of fore-mentioned 14 year old brother), and ran outside with my camera.  It was so beautiful and serene.

I wished I had grabbed my camera when I took the 14 year old to basketball practice, because it was the most beautiful scene down main street.  With limited visibility, you could just see bare trees silhouetted against this misty gray/white backdrop.  It was breathtaking.  Of course, by the time I got back home to grab my camera, the sun had come up and chased most of it away.

But I just had to share a taste of the beauty of my home!