Finally! A Real Snowfall! Plus Time With Diane

I have been complaining that you Southern tier of states have gotten more season to date snow than we here in Madison Wisc.. Well, Wednesday we finally got our first more that a light dusting snowfall for 2025 at between 5 and 6 inches. Tuesday's sun rose on a bright and clear, though very cold day where the lawns were all fully covered with a pristine blanket of snow for the first time this season. (If an lawn grass stubble shows through the snow it does not count.) I had to get my car out of the my apartment parking lot by 11:00am so they could plow it so I gave Diane a call to see what she was up to.

She had planned on going grocery shopping but decided it was too beautiful day for us to not get out and about and enjoy it together. We drove around for a bit and then we decided to stop for coffee, pastry and more conversation to tide us over from a too early breakfast. There was one of our favorite St Vinnie's nearby so we stopped there to browse. Diane found a top and I ended up buying her a pair of earrings with a red stone for Valentine's Day. I also picked up a jigsaw puzzle. From there we wandered over the the Sun Prairie Library which we both agree has one of the nicest reading rooms of any in the area. It has a large fireplace as part of the south wall with large windows on either side looking out on a park. Hung around there reading magazines we do not get at home for an hour or so. Decided to head back to Diane's place but she said we had to stop at the store to at least pick up cat food and cat treats as she was out. Also she said we needed to stop at Barnes & Noble bookstore as she had a book on hold there to give to me as a Valentine's gift. I dropped her at the door and waited not too long for her to come back out. Stopped at the grocery store near her place and of course I went in with her. She got her cat food plus we picked up a frozen pizza to have for supper. Decided as long as we were there and she had her list she might as well do all her shopping. Besides then I could help her carry it all up to her apartment. Her foot is a lot better but still tender. After getting her groceries put away and the pizza started she gave me the book she said she felt was just right for me as it has lessons in it that I would understand because I already had learned them. It is a thin little book with drawings or watercolor pictures on almost each page titled: "The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse." by Charlie Mackesy. After we ate I read it to her. As it has so many pictures in it we retired to bed so it would be easy for us both to to see them. Besides it feels so much more intimate to read or be read to when naked under the bed covers. Diane gave me a card with the book and in it she said that for her I was home. I loved that sentiment but the true meaning came near the end of the book when the little boy near the end of the adventures of the title characters the boy asks: Home isn't always a place is it? Then I knew just what Diane meant in her card about being her home. Well I have long known it. It is that I had never thought of it in just that way before then. I also realized that I feel the same way about her. She, not the apartment where I live, is home to me, or perhaps it is more accurate to say, home to my soul, and I am home to her's. After reading that book and talking about it I think our soul cuddling was warmer than usual.

This morning while Diane was having her tea an or course before either of us even thought of getting dressed I finally and belatedly redid painting her toenails. Took the Holiday green and red off and did her nails in a new pair of colors. A glittery dark blue and a equally glittery dark magenta. Diane took pictures of me doing her toes with her phone but for some reason I could not get them to download on this computer. If I had I am sure I would have included at least one of them in this post. I also vacuumed parts of her place, that is I just hit the high spots, as when she tried to do it a day or so ago between the way one moves on ones feet when rolling it back pained her injured foot a lot and also upset her balance. How could I not do it for her. She took some pictures with her phone of me doing that also and I still had not put even my thong on. She said she had to take several pictures to get one that did not show all of my bits and bob. Could get them to download either nor had I seen them as I expected to get them on this laptop.

Finally about 11:00am I was getting dressed to leave when a friend of out called Diane. She was wondering if she would care to meet at a nearby cafe for brunch. She was delighted to hear I was with Diane and that we would both love to meet her there in about 45 minutes. It is a favorite place for coffee and lunch for all three of us. Their pastries are made there and outstanding. However, what most appeals to us is they have the best creamy bacon potato soup, with home baked French bread, we have ever had. Perfect for a day that started with temperatures around Zero degrees Fahrenheit. I had an Almond Crousaint, sic, with coffee while waiting for the soup and considered that breakfast then a bowl of the potato soup thinking of it as lunch. Conversation was, as usual, long and a delight. When we finally finished I dropped Diane off at her place and headed home thinking that snow was expected later on and looking forward to it.

As I mentioned , the forecast for today was for more snow starting late this afternoon and surprisingly it started to snow about 5:00pm an was snowing and blowing hard by 6:00. I reveled in watching it out of my windows. About 7:30 I decided to post about Diane and my "date" but put off starting it so I could take some pictures out of my windows of it snowing to include in this post.

This picture is out of my bedroom window and I loved to see how the snow danced in the light of the parking lot light. Often the snow was heavier and sometimes a curtain of blown snow would show blowing across the light.

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This view was gives a better idea of how nicely the snow was blanketing the ground. I know that many of you may be tired of seeing such a view but this is the first time this year we have had this much on a the ground and I have missed seeing it.

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Here is a shot of showing one of the reasons I love this apartment. It is not seeing the apartment building but rather the fir tree that partly conceals them. Love the way the snow clings to the needled branches.

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I am fortunate to also have this pine tree to look at out that window. It shows so nice from my reading and watching TV chair. It too looks to cheering with the snow gathered in its needles. The yellow cast on the snow is from an older sodium vapor light they have in that part of the parking lot. I think that color makes a nice contrast to the greenish cast of the needles.

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Well, this took a lot longer than I expected as the pictures I took with my camera of it snowing did not turn out well so I retook them with my camera. It takes much better low light pictures than my camera does and I am not sure why I did not use it the first time. The snow has settled down to just an occasional flitting now and then before ramping back up around dawn and sticking around till a bit after noon.

I believe I may have been too wordy in describing my time with Diane yesterday and today. Hope you did not mind or get bored. It is certainly time for me to head off to bed. I think I shall reread that lovely little book Diane so thoughtfully gave me and so, perhaps dream of her being my true home and I hers.

Hope you all had as great a St Valentine's Day I had. May you all have a wonderful weekend.