I always thank God...

I write this simply to remember to be grateful.

Dark and cold is one thing.* Dark and cold and stuck is something quite else entirely. Today I am grateful for our firepit because, because of it, we have a stack of cardboard at the house, somewhat lessened now that I used a copious amount to give me traction to gun it out onto the street.

I also am grateful, every time it snows, that we live on a through street that gets plowed early and often. Even as I shovel (and still usually grumble) about the plowed snow that entraps our cars, I am so beyond-words grateful that we are already plowed.

And I would be remiss if I did not thank God for a Big Frog with a strong back and a willing heart who usually does the bulk of the shoveling.

* It was kind of funny that, when our power went out on Monday, PPL's outage-reporting automated system told me cheerfully that they had no idea when, if ever, we would get it back. The lights blinked back on in 10min. Today, by contrast, the lights went out at the exact same moment of the day, so I called and expected similar. Today's automated voice informed me that we should have power at noon tomorrow (20h after the outage), with a distinctly robotic attitude of "I am just saying noon to everyone. Don't hold your breath. It's entirely a crapshoot." It was like talking to Marvin the Paranoid Android.