Winter weather?

This is my neighbor's yard. I felt like such a stalker when I put my telephoto lens on my camera and took pictures of their yard from my living room window. But it had to be done. You had to see that while the rest of the U.S. is besieged by snowy wintry weather, we have grassy lawns in January. Just in case you don't remember, I live in Alaska. This is weird.

While most people have grassy yards, our yard is surrounded by trees, and is therefore mostly in the shade.  So while everyone else's snow melted or blew away,

our yard turned into a solid sheet of ice as did every single driveway and parking lot.

Given that my choice of winter foot wear is either my Danskos or my cheapo faux Uggs from Target, I slip and slide around a lot. My goal this winter is to not fall on my arse. Considering I fell at least three times last winter (I started losing count after a while), I think this is a pretty lofty goal. My back has not been quite the same since then. I actually had to go to the doctor because my leg was going numb after one particularly hard landing when I wiped out while I was carrying my nephew. He was completely unscathed, being the super aunt that I am I tried my darnedest not to squash him and I succeeded. He just thought I did a really neat trick. I sincerely hope that I can make it through the winter without wiping out.  I'm not sure how much more my body can take.

This is not the winter wonderland I was hoping for.

This is the winter wonderland I would like to have back again. 

If I'm risking life and limb (ok, mostly just limb) walking around in this winter weather, I would like it to at least be pretty. Is that too much to ask?