YES! It was a long wait this year but finally, there it was ... SNOW!   
We woke up to a thin layer of the white stuff on Thursday morning!                       

                                

                                

The forecast of earlier this week showed a lot more than we eventually got but still .. 'beggars can't be choosers' I guess. 
I'm not complaining ... well, maybe a little. 

                                                    

 

                                   

I raced outside before breakfast at 7:30, still in my 'pyjamas' with a quick coat thrown over it, and started to snap away some pictures before it would disappear. 
The temperature hoovered just around freezing, so I already knew it wouldn't be around for long.

When I went for a walk around 9:30 it had already deflated some, but there was still enough around to make that typical crunching, squeeking sound when stepping on it.
(Guess what? There's actually a word for it. "Crump." Dictionary.com says it is a verb meaning "to make a crunching sound, as in walking over snow, or as snow when trodden on.")

Than, as we do each year, we decorated and celebrated Fat Tuesday this last Tuesday. 
A tradition we adopted after living in Louisiana for almost 2 years.
(which is 10 years ago .. holy smokes!)

 

                  
I hung some of our (plastic) beads that we collected during the parades we attended during the time we lived near New Orleans and of which (18 pounds!) I'd saved a handful ..

                                                 
                                                                                My haul in 2016!

Once made of glass and cherished by parade spectators who were lucky enough to catch them, today cheap plastic beaded necklaces from overseas are tossed from floats by the handful. 
Spectators sometimes pile dozens around their necks, but many are trashed or left on the ground. A few years ago after heavy flooding, the city found more than 46 tons of them clogging its storm drains!

                           
        

Apparently a slow-moving trend at the moment is moving to more eco-friendly objects like the “PlantMe Beads” which are 3D printed from a starch-based, commercially available material called polylactic acid, or PLA. 
The individual beads are large hollow spheres containing okra seeds. That is because the necklaces can actually be planted, and the okra attracts bacteria that helps them decompose.

        

Of course I baked a King Cake:

                                              

I use a different recipe each year, there are hundreds on the Internet, and this one tasted surprisingly good, but the dough was #$@^%! impossible to handle so I most definitely won't repeat it!
                           
And so we've entered the period of Lent, the 40-day period of reflection, prayer, and fasting in preparation for Easter which will end on Holy Thursday, April 2nd.
If you're Catholic, that is of course ... we'll just merrily keep on sinning and indulging (just kidding).

Only one more month to go and it will officially be Spring! 
I wonder if we'll see more snow before that ...