Trying to type on a notebook computer keyboard while wearing gloves is an interesting experience.  It’s a wonder I am actually hitting the correct keys with my fingers swaddled in acrylic and rayon.  Yet somehow I’m hitting the mark.  I’d brag about my keyboarding skills but really I think it comes down to muscle memory and positioning.

Why am I typing while wearing gloves?  Because my fingers are freezing, that’s why!  Plus I am sitting here at the ice rink watching my daughter re-tie her skates with fingers that, by the way, are NOT gloved.  There she is out there on the ICE, sans gloves, while I sit in the mezzanine in (comparatively) warmer circumstances, typing with gloves.  I’m also wearing a long sleeve shirt, an athletic sweatshirt hoodie,  a wool coat, and heavy jeans. There’s also a warm blanket over my lap.  Yes, I have learned how to stay comfortable up here at the rink!

I am pining the morning away wishing I was somewhere WARM and tropical.  I adore photography, but weather like this makes it extremely difficult for me to get in any photo shoots — indoors or out, because my fingers have two temperatures: ice cold and frigid. It’s hard to manipulate a camera properly with numb, painful appendages.

One of my goals in photography is giving glory to God for His creation through my images. Yet I have a form of “writer’s block” in regard to photography lately.  A couple of days ago, God painted a breathtaking sunset.  I saw it outside my front door…but I did not bother digging out the camera because doing so would have produced the “same” image I’ve taken hundreds of times, bordered by the same houses and seen through the same trees.  There’s only so much cropping a girl can do.

I want to find places unspoiled by people.  A place where a pond meets the trees meets the sunset, with no power lines, no houses, no trucks or trains, no people, and especially no ice or snow to handicap my hands.

This wanderlust for tropical locales hits me this time every year, and  I wonder why on earth we moved away from Florida.  Then I drive through Rosa’s Tortilla Factory and remember: Tex Mex is best in Texas!

So where can I find contentment in my current dreary, dead-tree, dead-grass, freezing cold environment?  How can I find beauty to capture in the dead of January?  I shot this photo on my front porch.  Snow caught in the crevices of the fake potted poinsettia.  I used my 60mm Macro lens and manual focus.

I didn’t have to go very far out in the cold, which was a good thing, because I didn’t last more than ten minutes or so!  This particular snow was in the process of melting, which is why I captured ice crystals instead of the traditional snowflake shape.

Usually snowfall makes me depressed.  Now it encourages me to get up close and see what kind of macro images I can get.  In short bursts, of course.

I just hope my fingers don’t fall off before spring!