We had a light dusting of snow yesterday morning:

(These are Jeremy’s pictures.) They were originally forecasting 1-2 inches Monday night and another couple Tuesday morning, but I don’t know if we got a whole inch all together.

It was enough to close the schools, though! You have to remember that here in the South they don’t spend the money to invest in a lot of snowplows and such (they do have a few) when they’d only use them maybe once or twice a year, plus people who aren’t used to it don’t know how to drive in it. And they have to make the call about school closings way early in order to get the word out, and they have to consider not just the main roads but the backs ones that school buses would be lumbering over. So usually any amount of snow causes school closings. But I do have to admit this one was probably miscalled. We could have gotten by with just a delay, but we probably didn’t even need that.

But it was nice to have a day off. Jeremy put together enough snow to make a 6-8″ snowman with a baby carrot for a nose:

Even the baby carrot is a little big for him!

And it was neat the kids could be off for Inauguration Day. It made it seem like a holiday. I wanted Jesse to see it. He wasn’t terribly interested, but I turned the TV on anyway, just about the time they were introducing the former presidents. I probably would have had the TV on most of the day if I had been in the same room with one for the day. I was sorry I missed the parade. I don’t know why, but I really like that part.

I don’t have a laptop and my PC is in another room, but I jotted down some thoughts as I watched:

• For a nation that has gone increasingly toward the casual, I am glad we retain a bit of pomp and ceremony for occasions like this.
• They said the wind chill was 14 degrees. I just cannot imagine being out in that cold for that long! We joked about the trumpet players’ lips freezing on their instruments.
• I also can’t imagine being way, way at the back. I was glad to be in my own warm house with my very own bathroom.
• I enjoyed seeing the former presidents enter.
• I hadn’t heard about Lynn Cheney being an author — will have to look up what she’s written. I was sorry to hear about Mr. Cheney’s accident.
• I like that the mikes picked up a lot of side comments — one of the announcers said they were picking up more than intended, But that was fun.
• It did this Southern girl’s heart good to hear Laura Bush say, “Hey there!” I enjoyed the announcers saying that she had really blossomed during her husband’s term in office. They said she had originally told him she didn’t want to make any speeches, but now she is quite an accomplished speaker. She has always been every inch a lady. I admire her a lot.
• At some point they showed a glimpse of the moving vans behind the White House. I thought that was a little sad. Then I thought, you know how it is on moving day, even if you have professional movers, and I can’t imagine either Mrs. Bush or Mrs. Obama calmly sitting through a ceremony while other people are moving their things!
• I was also thinking of Michelle Obama as her girls entered. I wonder if she would rather they entered with her. I would have. It must be hard in some instances to entrust them to other people.
• It will be fun to have relatively young children in the White House again. I enjoyed watching Michelle Obama “mother” the girls and the older girl filming her dad on her camera.
• I know some people would object to an opening prayer on this occasion at all, but it was a blessing to me to see a lot of people praying the Lord’s prayer out loud.
• I’m glad Rick Warren did not refrain from praying in Jesus’ name.
• I wonder why the vice-president’s contains a phrase about mental reservations while the president’s doesn’t? Either way — better not have any left at that point!
• I really, really enjoyed the piece played by Itzhak Perlman and Yo-Yo Ma and the two others (I wasn’t familiar with them). I have greatly liked Yo-Yo Ma ever since I first heard of or saw him years ago on Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood. (Don’t laugh — that’s where I got a lot of cultural enlightenment when the boys were little.)

No really deep thoughts there — I expressed those yesterday. I didn’t analyze the speeches — others can do that better than I can. We turned the TV off after people began disbursing from the area. I had it on again for a while last night to see some of the coverage of the different balls.

I also watched “The Biggest Loser.” This is my first season to watch it. I guess I am hoping it inspires me, and it is causing me to question some of my choices and say “no” a little more often. Just one thought so far: people don’t seem to be getting that Joellen isn’t motivated by yelling. She shuts down. I do, too. I don’t think she’s putting as much into it as she could, and I think her hesitation on the first “temptation” last time marked her, but I hope they find a different way to interact with her. She probably should have gone home last night, but, then again. Damien had the support and motivation to continue on his own. I think if Joellen had gone home she’d be done.

And that’s enough about that.

My blog friend Melli has started an ABC photo challenge over the next several Wednesdays. The idea is to find letters of the alphabet in the things around us — not in a letter on a sign or in something we manipulate to form the letter. She’s doing two letters at a time with today’s being A and B.

I wanted to look around outside to see if I could find something, but never did. Tese aren’t too exciting, but here they are:

This looks like an A shape to me:

And this turned on its side has a B shape in it:

The original picture:

I’ll try to do better next time, Melli!