the first day of spring - WTF?!?!?

all last week we experienced some really beautiful weather. sooo . . . we planned on cooking saturday nite dinner on the grill. by wednesday the weather forecast was calling for rain starting friday nite and lasting til early saturday morning. no big deal. i was partyin friday nite til 3:30am and it had just barely started sprinkling a little. woke up saturday morning to overcast skies and the north wind blowin like crazy and temps in the 30s??? (just the day before, on friday, the sun was shining with a high of 72??? go figure. that's life out here on the prairie . . .) changed dinner plans to chicken cacciatore with italian cheese bread and peach crisp - cold weather comfort foods ya know. around 2:30 saturday afternoon small frozen pellets of snow started falling. by 5pm huge flakes of snow were being blown horizontally by the strong north winds. sunday morning woke up with my backyard looking like this . . .


the first day of spring??? WTF?!?!? we had plans to spend the afternoon at the dallas arboretum and botanical garden http://www.dallasarboretum.org/ obviously we changed those plans also. now don't get me wrong, i do enjoy a nice snowfall. but NOT when the north winds are blowing and NOT on the first day of spring. there are reasons that i no longer live in minnesota!!!

we did have one of those perfect snowfalls on february 11th. it was a texas record breaker. huge fluffy flakes (with no wind) fell for about 22 hours, from 3am til around midnight, accumulating a foot of snow on the ground. it was beautiful!!!


today the sun is shining again, clear skies and warm temps. yesterday's snow is all gone. everything's back to normal. SPRINGTIME. yahoo!!! here's what my backyard typically looks like . . .


guess it's the contrasts, the variations, that make us all pause for a moment and notice all the little things in life with appreciation.