I should have written yesterday.

The weather forecast was for a wintery mix changing over to snow. It was a constantly changing forecast. First it was to hit Tuesday evening and give us 5 inches of snow. Then it went to Tuesday/Wednesday midnight and 2-4 inches of snow. Then it went to Wednesday morning and 1-3 inches of snow. All this change in the forecast happened in a 12 hour window on Tuesday. I went home Tuesday night not knowing if I would be able to get to work on Wednesday or not. So I brought some work home: a 1-inch thick pile of guide specifications that needed editing. But I parked my pickup up the hill, in case I decided to go to work in the morning.

Tuesday night, at bedtime, I set my alarm for the usual time. The forecast said rain through the night, changing over to the wintery mix around 7 a.m., and to snow around 1 p.m.  I got up at six, showered and dressed for work (in my black “dress” jeans). I checked the weather sources: no change in the forecast overnight. Then I went out with the dog to see what conditions were. This is not our dog; we are dog-sitting for neighbors who had a quick trip out of town for a funeral. Rocky and I walked up to his house, and then beyond. A very light rain was falling, quite cold against the face, but when we passed my pickup I saw the windshield was frozen over. I left Rocky inside his house, to allow him a couple of hours in familiar territory, walked home, and made the executive decision I wasn’t going to work.

Back inside I completed Bible reading and prayer, caught up on Facebook and let the world know where I’d be for the day, then went to The Dungeon around 8 a.m. By this time the rain had changed to sleet. By 11 a.m. it was snowing—hard, big flakes. I sat in The Dungeon, computer open to stock charts, portfolio list, and social media/e-mail, and began editing the specs. Through the window I saw the winter wonderland arrive.

Also open on the computer was a Word document, a family memoir I started a week or two ago. I looked at it a little, making a tweak here and there. It’s very early in this document. I’m trying to figure out family dynamics in my dad’s family, actually in his parents’ and grandparents’ families, to determine the influences that shaped him and his siblings and, hence, me and my siblings and cousins. I would say, however, I spent less than 15 minutes on this.

All day I alternated between specs and computer. By 3:30 p.m., with only a short break for lunch, I had made a major dent in the spec pile, had made one stock trade, read all e-mails, and thoroughly enjoyed myself. At this point I went upstairs and decided to go for a walk. The temperature was plummeting, down to around 25 by this time, and light snow was still falling. So I bundled up, told Rocky he couldn’t come, and walked up to the highway, about 0.65 miles away. The snow over the sleet gave good traction on our street. Then on the next two the City had plowed, knocking the snow away but leaving a lot of the sleet. The whole way I found that I had no problems with footing. The sleet was nothing like ice. I could walk fine whether it was on the snow or on the sleet or on the nearly-cleared pavement.

I walked at a good clip, probably around 22 minutes per mile, though I didn’t use a stopwatch. The entire way I saw no cars, no other humans. At the highway I stopped and stood for a minute or so. The businesses across the street seemed to be closed. Even though the highway was in good shape, no vehicles appeared. When I got home I took Rocky out for a walk around the circle. He seemed unfazed by the snow, either that on the ground or that still falling.

Back home I fortified myself with nuked coffee, went to my chair, picked up my Nook, and soon fell asleep. I love to sleep in this chair. No, it’s not real comfortable, but it seems like the place to sleep. Ten or fifteen minutes later I was awake, ready to…do something. Read some blogs, ate supper, watched some news, and put on a Harry Potter movie. At that point I multi-tasked, picking my Nook up again and doing some genealogy research into the families I mentioned earlier. I re-registered for the LDS genealogy site (at least I think I was registered before), and found lots of good information. I took notes, having no way to print anything from my Nook.

This took me up to after 11:00 p.m., at which time I took Rocky for a walk, and hit the sack. We had less accumulation than I’d hoped for, about 2 inches of snow on top of almost 1 inch of sleet. Possibly I should have gone to work. Since we didn’t have ice, even Old Blue Leaf probably would have found good traction. But I had a good day. I’ll charge half of it to the company, half to vacation.

And I didn’t even work on any creative writing projects, all day. If you don’t count my reading in the letters of Thomas Carlyle as research for a future writing project.