First decent snowfall of the year: probably six inches last night. Lots of neighbors out shoveling driveways, at least fifty kids careening down the steep hill at the park behind our house, and teenagers a-plenty doing donuts in the adjacent unplowed school parking lot (first weekend of Christmas break).

The cold hasn’t been quite so biting and really, when you’re focused on the fun of the snow you don’t notice the temperature anyway. I’m curious how much snow we end up with this year. Last year we had 29 inches for the season and people around here marveled about how abnormally high that was (the two previous years were both about eight inches each for the entire winter).

I got up at seven this morning to shovel the driveway (one of the few chores I never mind doing), then Mary and I ran the dogs through dog-chest-high snow at the park. Predictably, they were amusingly enthusiastic bounding about.

It’s been over four weeks now since the injury, but I think my shoulder is finally starting to heal (after a couple of early setbacks when I stupidly tried to wrestle on it during wrestling practice). I can do limited range of motion tasks without any pain, but motions where I have to reach up and vertical/back aren’t much better at all (like throwing a football or reaching into the back seat of my car while driving). At the gym I started carefully doing pull-ups and other lat exercises again with an occasional twinge, but any sort of bench press or dip is out of the question. Maybe in a couple more weeks.