The beauty of the snow makes the grey, dark weather almost worthwhile. Winters without snow are so sad. Aidan tries to make snowballs but isn't very successful with his mittens, so I make them for him and he throws them. The first one I made he threw right at my head, not realizing that they were icy and hard. I told him to throw them for the dog to chase and then everyone was happy.

Wes gets positively nutty in the snow. When I was 2 months pregnant with Aidan we had a terrific snow and Wes short circuited from joy and ran off. I chased him for about a mile - running in high snow. There were lots of people out because school had been cancelled and people were outside shovelling and playing. Not a single person offered to help me. That's Long Island.

I went to the house yesterday because I had an pest treatment scheduled and I had to pay for it. The owners were very nice and invited me in and were asking me questions about the mortgage situation and offering up little bits of information about living in the house, the neighbors, etc. I explained everything I've gone through in the past week. They didn't say it outright, but I am fairly certain that they will stick this out. If I could just give them a closing date, I think they'd be allright. I was feeling a little more positively about the house too. I've been a little gloomy about it. A big part of that is because we were going to get $10,000 extra from the mortgage for improvements, but even the second appraisal didn't come in high enough for that, and I only found that out on Friday. But I have started thinking about all of the little luxuries that this place will afford us even without renovations: a shower, a dishwasher, a clothes dryer, closets, storage space, wood floors.

The two margaritas, one white Russian and fabulous lasagna dinner that we had with our friends Jes and Lee last night has also helped to improve my mood considerably.