Snow is Coming to North Idaho - You just know it is because it always does

I've lived in North Idaho since 2013. I've been through five winters here and am about to go through the sixth. Each winter has been different. One winter it was extremely cold, with occasional snow. The next winter there was some snow, but very little. One winter there were many hail storms. One winter the snow got deep and stayed for months, and months. Brrrr... the memories. One winter we had a lot of electrical storms.

Now, looking at my sixth (and what may be my final North Idaho winter) I wonder where the hail storms and lightening went. I could really do without that lightening. Also, hail is not cool. Well, it is cold, but not good... I have one dent on the hood of my car from hail - but that happened in New Mexico while I was on the way home from Texas in 2017. Still, I'm hoping for no hail.

I live in an apartment ... and there are more cars here than the awning will shelter. Sometimes I get a sheltered parking space and sometimes I don't. If we have to have hail, I'll be parking under the shelter and leaving it there. I can live without going anywhere. I did it before when I didn't have a car. There are ways to get food delivered - I don't have to go out for that.

The weather report shows rain this week until Saturday, and then two days of snow. Our first snow this year was November 9. Well, looks like we're in for it. Today I'm going out to Coeur d'Alene to get things done before the snow comes. Might as well get on with it.

Gratitudes:

1. I'm grateful for the car my mother gave me in January 2017. I was so destitute without a car for three and a half years. This has helped tremendously.

2. Grateful for the food supplements I have on hand, though I need to buy more Vitamin E.

3. I'm grateful for my new Kindle Fire ... I'm getting a lot of use out of it, both for Kindle books and Audible audio books.

Plan for the day: do errands before the snow comes

1. Go test drive the van

2. Shop for a new cell phone plan

3. Go see Tina

Currently reading:

1. The Nightingale, by Kristen Hannah. I read about fifty pages last night. Almost half way through the book.

2. Never be Fat Again, by Raymond Francis . . . I'm reading chapter 11, about food supplements.

My writing business, snow, and my son's visit

Sometimes it is better to write a little than not to write at all. I like this blog because I feel like I can write tiny posts without it harming anything.

Some of my other blogs are there for more important purposes, and so I write articles with a minimum of 500 words, and sometimes much, much longer. The pressure to write long articles is enormous because they do better in search engine results.

Today I've set before myself the task of writing 2 articles. One is a revision of an unpublished old article on what to do if your home business gets more business than you can handle. The other - I think will be on parental rights for disabled people.

And now, a prayer:

Heavenly Father, please help me with my writing. You alone know how hard this is for me. You are the only one who watches as I stumble and fall, and you know how much failure has become the norm for me. Please help me today and every day to get my work done and to write articles that are truly useful to those who need to read them. Let me do it all for You. In the name of Your Son, Jesus Christ, Amen.

It snowed all night on Thursday/Friday this week and we're expecting a lot more snow before Christmas. In the two years since I moved to Idaho, I've never seen deep snow. I saw deeper snow when I lived in Happy Camp, in California.

It gets a lot colder here, though, and the snow freezes to the pavement, whereas in Happy Camp the roads were usually cleared right away. People here drive on frozen, icy packed snow like it was just nothing.

This is what I saw when I woke up Friday morning. This is what Northern Idaho is supposed to look like in the winter... though too often I see no snow at all. The snow here is only four inches.

When I went into my office (a bedroom in my apartment) I saw that my window was iced over. I'm trying to train myself to take photos whenever I see something awesome... because I know it won't last long. Something will change. The ice melts, or light patterns change. So I snapped a few photos right away.

Once I settled into my office chair, which is a chaise lounge with a card-table desk that goes over it, I saw this sight out that window. The roofs, covered by white, and the icy window slowly warming.

That table is for filing. The little green-topped Truvia jars are what I keep little things in - like rubber bands, buttons, paper clips, etc..

Last week I decided to sponsor a poverty-stricken child in Mexico. I wrote about it on my Prayer-Power blog: Prayer for Children Living in Poverty. I love this little girl and want so much to be a blessing to her and her family, and her town. Her name is Brisia and she's eight years old, of Mayan descent.

A few weeks ago my youngest son came by to visit. I hadn't seen him in over a year so this was a wonderful event for me. I had to walk down to the truck stop on the corner, and he came rolling in with an 18-wheeler.

We ate dinner together at the Subway in the truck stop. This is how he gets his vegetables... something only a mom would spend time thinking about, I guess.

Okay, I'm ready for another visitor. Who wants to be next?

I'd better go do some serious writing now.

Willie Dream

Strange, I was dreaming about an old friend, Willie, this morning. I dreamed he'd won a dream house. It was awesome. Then my daughter told me we got a call from the city he lives in - the number is on her Call Wave today - but there's no Caller ID name, just the name of the city. I'm not calling back. I figure if someone wants to talk to me bad enough they can leave a message on the Call Wave to let me know who it is. And if they don't want to do that, maybe there's a reason.

SNOW: We had the first snowfall of the year on November 25 this year. It was just a light dusting - less than an inch - but nice to see. It melted away too quickly - when the snow turned to drizzle.

Graphics Tutorial and Weather

Today I worked for a while on a graphics tutorial... to make chrome letters.

Now it is starting to rain outside... and I hear lightning.. thunder... how unwelcome. I really don't want any fires and this is how they usually get started around here. :(

Classes: Weather Spotting and It's Your Business

Wednesday night I went to a Weather Spotting Class and now I'm a trained weather spotter for the National Weather Service office in Medford, Oregon! About eight of us were trained and signed up for the job. It was fun and I learned a lot about summer thunder storms.

On Thurday night we had the last "It's Your Business" class ... it was a lot of fun listening to and giving presentations about what we learned and what our next steps are in forming our businesses. I've decided to start a webdesign business believe it or not. It will be Klamath Design and the website won't be up for another month but I'm already busy making websites for the Chamber of Commerce here. In exchange they gave me the software I've been needing to start this business. I'm also doing other things besides webdesign but that is what I like doing best.

Of course I'm still writing my novels and I'm also putting up an author website that will hopefully help me sell my stuff.

In other news - my daughter's birthday is tomorrow! We got her a karaoke machine and are paying for her to have a pizza party downtown with a few friends.