January days…office move…snow cake...and snow angels

OFFICE  MOVE

Mark moved from his office on one side of Marathon's offices to one facing the Cultural Palace.  One evening after work I joined Mark as he spent some time unpacking in his new "home".

This office actually is on the same side of the building that Mark worked on when he first arrived in Warsaw, but his first workspace was a cubicle on the other side of the wall.  

The move was a good one as this office is bigger, lighter and has a great view of the streets of downtown Warsaw and the beautiful Centrum area.  Here is his view on a typical winter day.

THE  SNOW  CAKE
We were amazed at how the snow continued to fall and fall in January. I decided to stand a 12-inch ruler in the snow on the table on our terrace.  When I first stood the ruler on the table it measured just over 8 inches of snow.

The snow kept coming down, and occasionally we would check to see how high it measured.

Eventually, the ruler was nearly completely buried in the snow!

Here is the terrace from the steps on the side.  The snow in the chairs looks like people dressed in white, with their arms resting on the chairs and hands on the edge of the table, ready to eat the massive white cake before them….except that the "people" in the chairs don't have heads.

It's a good thing I snapped these pictures when I did, because a couple of hours later our gardener came and started removing the snow!  I was a little disappointed….he usually does not shovel the snow from our terrace, but we think our landlord must have seen all the snow and wanted some of it removed.

For someone accustomed to Warsaw winters this might not be a big deal.

But for us who were raised in southern California and then lived in Texas for 30 years…the snow continues to amaze.

SNOW  ANGELS

Earlier in the day we had gone on another walk through the park near our home, and upon our return we decided to go into the back yard to make snow angels.  It was tricky getting to the back of the house…as this huge pile of snow covered the walkway.  

This pile was the accumulation of all the snow that the gardener had shoveled off of our porch and walkways.  Since the temperature had been below freezing for a few weeks, the snow had not melted, and the pile kept growing higher and higher.

We made it into the yard….

….where the my boots sunk several inches into the snow.

Here we would make the snow angels.  I went first.

There I am in the snow!

Mark was next….

….making a snow angel beside mine.

It's tricky to get up and out of the angel without messing it up.

I had no idea that I was so much smaller than Mark…but the snow angels show it!

It was fun to look out of our bedroom window and see our imprints in the snow.

We have enjoyed the January snow…and that means one more month of our winter was coming to a close. The snow is pretty….

….and little did we know that the first week of February would bring temps in the high 30s, and almost all of the snow would melt!