Thoughts on a gray winter day

There's always some work that could be done in a house, some dusting and laundering and putting away of things.  That's what I should be doing, but here I sit, as usual.  The Chiefs are out of the playoffs; I'm just glad they made it as far as they did.
This snow they're forecasting, anywhere from three to eight inches, depending on what station I'm watching, is supposed to start tonight.  Frankly, I wish it was snowing now.  I'm hoping for the full eight inches.  
There's an excitement in watching big, fluffy flakes falling outside my window, wondering how much we'll end up with, checking to see if it's still coming down.  I love to walk outside in the snow; there's such a pure, bright silence about it.  It's fun seeing all the fresh tracks left in new snow by wildlife, back in the woods.  
The goldfinches are starting to hit the feeders pretty regularly; as recently as two days ago I saw a couple of my bluebirds still hanging around.  They like to flit around their old homestead, the bluebird house where they were hatched.  Often one of them will be perched on top of it.
I spend lots of time looking out my window across the pasture.  Many people have expressed something akin to shock when they find out I chose to move from a two-story house into a trailer house.  One of the main reasons for the move was that I literally hungered for a view, a place where I could look out my window and see something besides a neighbor's clutter.  After the rental trailer was hauled away, the old house did gain somewhat of a view to the east.  Here, though, sitting at my computer desk, I can look out and see clear to the other side of the Missouri River.  That does something for my soul that I can't explain.  It restores me, in some way.    
I have the winter doldrums, and I'm not alone.  I can sense it all across blog-land.  People have less to say now; we're all "hunkered down" awaiting the next wintry blast, and the next.  Inspiration fails us at times, and yet every once in awhile someone seizes a spark of inspiration and strings a set of words together that takes my breath away; I'm thankful for this little window on the world that is the Internet.  
These are just ordinary people, not super-stars or newsmen or politicians or famous journalists.  People just like me, telling about their day-to-day activities:  feeding turtles, baking biscuits, going to work, raising their children, enjoying their grandchildren.  These are people I can relate to.  
Then there are those of you who don't have your own blogs, but you leave comments here.  Often you'll answer questions I throw out, or give suggestions.  Sometimes you simply give me your stamp of approval, your little "amen" to something I've said here.  We swap recipes and news stories and talk about the good old days.  
We're neighbors in a way I would never have dreamed of, back before the Internet.