There’s a winter storm warning here until Saturday, so let’s look at some macros of snowflakes:
I’ll try to remember this perspective as I’m shoveling six to ten inches. (Found via evencleveland; more images here.)
Category: cold
Someday, Palm Springs
If you’ve followed my lists for the last two years, you know that I can’t even make it to Moab, four hours away–so going to my dream vacation spot, Palm Springs (which is much warmer than Moab in the winter), is really not going to happen.
Last fall I saw that fabric designer Heather Ross was hosting a weekend sewing workshop in Palm Springs January 21-23. “Hotel and meals and sewing machine all provided for $700?” I thought. “One of my favorite sewing bloggers teaching classes? I should do that!”
But then I saw that hotel rooms were based on double occupancy, and I got shy, and thought I should save money for the house, and I talked myself out of it. Little did I know that Palm Springs would sound REALLY NICE in our second week of sub-freezing highs. Oh, well. If it happens next year, maybe I can remember this post.
Pretty. Also, COLD.
I was out this morning sweeping off the little bit of snow that accumulated and making sure the bird feeder was uncovered and full, and it looked like this: 
(Maxfield Parrish, “Winter Night Landscape [Study].” Oil on board, 1956-58.)
I hope all the birds and the strays and the people who were out last night are OK. I actually got a recorded call from Utah Power yesterday evening saying to stop unnecessary power use to accommodate demand due to the extreme cold, and to consider lowering thermostats “five to ten degrees.” Um, no. But I didn’t use the space heater last night, because I am a good and obedient citizen. I noticed all the neighbors kept their Christmas lights on, though.
#$%&! Snow
Yeah. It snowed. There’s snow on the ground and it’s cold. I happened across a blog about people who stay year-round at McMurdo station in Antarctica; the latest post is welcoming back the seasonal people, of which my uncle is one. Here’s the blog: frozensouth.com. I suppose we can read it and think that it’s not that cold here yet. Yet.
Keeping It In Perspective
In addition to pulling together a portfolio and biting my nails over my long weekend, I started reading about Ernest Shackleton’s 1915 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition:
There is nothing that makes you think, “Wow, it could be worse” faster than hearing about people stuck in the frozen Weddel Sea.
They were for all practical purposes alone in the frozen Antarctic seas…Nobody in the outside world knew they were in trouble, much less where they were. They had no radio transmitter with which to notify any would-be rescuers, and it is doubtful that any rescuers could have reached them even if they had been able to broadcast an SOS….
Thus their plight was naked and terrifying in its simplicity. If they were to get out–they had to get themselves out.
And in a nice cross-media tie-in, I watched Encounters at the End of the World Saturday night. (Highly recommended, especially for Werner Herzog’s voice-overs.)There are crazy scallops underneath the ice in Antarctica! And seals make weird clicking whistles underwater! The world is a cool place, and I’m not trapped in the ice. It could be worse.