As usual, when we go away in January to avoid it, winter waits until we get home to show its face. So one week after we returned from “balmy” Maryland, we got a doozy of a late-welcome-home in the form of a dozen inches of snow, accompanied by 50 miles-per-hour winds. It’s quite beautiful for a day, but then it becomes a major pain. Parking spaces disappear. Boots track in snow. The beautiful whiteness is blackened by car exhaust.

The Governor urges everyone to stay home and we think that will allow us to get organized. We have bills to pay, reading to catch up with, long to-do lists.

Instead, we linger over our morning coffee and the newspaper (which beat the storm by minutes). We make a steaming pot of soup, the ultimate comfort meal.

And, if you are me, you decide it’s the perfect day to paint blue streaks into your hair. Which I do.