This past week of rough weather has been an important lesson and slapped down my hubris. I recently discovered, or instead, learned the hard way, that over confidence was a huge mistake. It seems we’ve had a year’s worth of weather in the last week, with snow, a little warming sun, below zero temperatures, howling winds, followed by more snow falling right now.

I was confident my new snow tires made my car impervious to snow; evidently, I was wrong because it is currently a snow-bound sculpture with tufts of white gracing its hood sitting outside my house. Until Saturday, it was nearly...