Surprise! Don't throw out the snow shovel!

This was not what I was expecting to see when I looked out the window this morning, snow! Last week most people changed their winter tires to summer tires and I've been full of the joys of spring for quite a while now.  But such is life, just when you think it's safe to put away the snow shovel, along comes more snow.

Luckily my pansies and tulips are sheltering in the porch and look great this morning.  It was quick to sweep this powdery snow off my car, not like the frozen mass I had to scrape away during the past winter.  I'm proud of myself and Monty for not just surviving this winter, but thriving in it, most of the time.  There were some very dark days when I left for work in pitch black and came back in the same, never having seen daylight except through a window from inside a cozy school room.

Even that was actually fine.  What did I have to complain about? I had a warm home, a reliable car, a job that paid the bills and provided both camaraderie and a sense of having done something useful each day. Not to mention a few laughs, especially with the preschoolers in Söderköping.

It's just that we become accustomed to certain weather and after twenty years in Central Coast California I was used to quite a lot of sunshine, winter and summer alike. Whereas in California the light is spread out pretty equally throughout the year,  here in Sweden we get most of it in the summer and hardly any at all in the winter.  To me this is normal, despite twenty years in California.  Winter Solstice is the shortest day and the longest night, Summer Solstice is the longest day and the shortest night.  The two equinoxes in between, spring and autumn are times of balance, equal day and night.  This is the way it was when I was growing up in England and that is the rhythm of seasons I feel is inbuilt in me, even after all these years.

Even though we have a sprinkling of snow this morning, I know it will soon be gone.  I gave the birds some extra seeds and am enjoying my smoothie while writing this blog post and looking out on the birch leaves opening up on my påsk ris with snow on the deck in the background.  Life is good.  It's a cliché perhaps, but, count your blessings and they will multiply.