For those not local, maybe you already heard that we got some snow recently. Actually, rather a lot. They're predicting another few inches tomorrow, too.

(And yes, I have photo evidence, if I can ever get the photos cleaned up and processed.)

The snow played merry hell with the lives of a lot of people, what with the unplowed roads and canceled flights and icy hills and general western-Massachusetts-style winter, but on the whole bubblesutonium and I were extremely fortunate. We live on a flat street. Our winter supplies include a good snow shovel, a supply of road salt and kitty litter, and a 4x4 Jeep, so we were never truly housebound. We had no travel plans. Everyone who came to visit us made it in and out safely. We're still trying to clean out the refrigerator from all the food we'd stocked up.

Which was good. This was the weekend bubblesutonium graduated, magna cum laude, from Seattle University's law school. All hail the doctor of laws. Sometimes, four years of hard work truly does pay off. Her beaming smile as she walked across the stage made everything worth it.

It was a good weekend despite, or in some cases because of, the weather. bubblesutonium got in her long-planned graduation dinner, though with a few empty chairs. (For those who weren't able to make it: you were missed.) Museum-hopping plans were canceled in favor of long walks through snow-covered streets with a camera. The hills echoed with the shrieks of the kids sledding in the closed-off streets. A flock of snow geese, never before seen in my neighborhood, gathered in the local park.

To my absolute delight, I got in a few hours of urban cross-country skiing through the local neighborhoods. That first night, with the deepest snow, I went skiing through a hushed and still Washington arboretum, watching the snow fall through the trees and obscure the tracks I was leaving behind. Perfect crystalline beauty.

And we haven't even gotten to Christmas Eve yet. The holiday is still to come.

Peace to you and yours. Every day brings us a little more light.