Signs of Spring???

I tend not to be an optimistic person, but you have to do your best when it's winter in Minnesota 6 months of the year. However, as I was getting in my car to go home from work, it hit me, we are inching slowly to spring. No longer is it dark when I go to work...the sun is starting to come up. But better than that, the sun is up until I get home at 5 p.m. Even my car in the middle of the day isn't the frigid cold that it was a month ago. The sun's rays are getting stronger. While the outside air says 7 degrees with a wind chill of 0, I'll take any signs of spring that there are for now.

How cold is it....

•The high never got above zero degrees (I believe the actual high was about -7)

•I had to walk six blocks outside, and my legs and feet, which only had one or two layers on, took at least 2 hours to thaw out

•I woke up to a temperature of -20 and a windchill of -40.

•My faithful Honda even had a hard time turning over after being outside all day

•The road chemicals (salt and sand) that they put on after the snow don't work (therefore there is still snow everywhere)

•Black ice (ice that forms from the exhaust of your car) is everywhere...worst of all you cannot see it...thus you must drive very, very slowly!

•The furnace runs most of the day just to keep the house at 62 degrees

•Even with the electric blanket on high, it still seems cold in the bed

•We cannot wait for a high temperature of above zero

•It was warmer in Antarctic than it was here this morning (granted it's summer down there)

•This weekend's forecast is for 20 degrees and all we can think of is breaking out the shorts and t-shirts

•If you leave a bottle of water in your car all day it will be a bottle of ice when you return


But, despite all of this, just hardy Minnesotans just continue on. I still see people biking to work, taking a run outside, and walking around without mittens or hats. I wouldn't call those people dumb, but maybe just a little insane.



GOTTA LOVE MINNESOTA!!!

Unless you commute to Minneapolis for work, there are very few transit options in the Twin Cities area. If I had the opportunity to use the system I would, but rarely get the opportunity (usually for the infrequent baseball game). However, today I had a meeting in Minneapolis for the whole day today, so I rode the light rail train into Minneapolis. It was so much fun to not have to drive or worry about parking. Best of all, I paid less for the train ride than I would have for parking. I wish I could do this everyday!

James and I are jinxed when it comes to skiing. No, not in the sense that we fall all of the time (but leave it to me to make it down the black diamonds okay, but fall waiting for the chairlift), but when it comes to weather. Each year we try to make it up to Lutsen (for all of you that don't live in Minnesota, it's about 50 miles from the Canadian border on Lake Superior) for a weekend of skiing. This year, as we had vacation time to spare, we went up over New Years. We had a three day ski pass, but ended up only going two days. The third day, as the snow was coming down sideways we went for a hike in Cascade State Park. It was beautiful with the fresh snow!