101 Posts

Unbeknown to me, the last post was my 100th on this blog. Perhaps if I had known it would be something different than a meme, but no biggie. At the rate I am going I will soon be celebrating my 200th post.

I cannot believe it is already my last full day in Minnesota. I fly out very early Tuesday morning. So, now you are saying "geez, if this is your last day, why are you spending it writing us a post instead of enjoying the time with your family?" The answer is simple enough - I am "home" alone. I put the home in quotations because while my mother and sister are both on the property, they are out playing with (feeding) the horses. They will be in shortly, and then my Dad will get home from taking Michaela to school, and we will all head off to town for some Christmas shopping and to have lunch with friends, but for now I am alone in my parents house, the sun beaming through the kitchen windows, with Radio Heartland, the offspring of the recently retired morning show, playing in the background. The snow is glistening so brightly in the sun it hard to even look outside, but if you can, its beautiful. What a nice morning, despite the -12 degree temperature.

Last night my sister LEK and I wandered outside around midnight to look at the stars, not letting the subzero temperature deter us. We turned off the outdoor lights and walked down the drive, eyes skyward. LEK took an astronomy class in college and thus was able to point out a number of constellations I have never been aware of - Draco the Dragon, Cassiopeia (the winter W), the amateurishly named "mini dipper" that is actually a tiny galaxy very far away. I miss the stars, its not so much something I cannot get in Ohio, just something I cannot get in Columbus. If anyone who reads this that lives in Columbus knows a good place to go to look at the stars, let me know.

By the time we came in, my face was getting numb (the only thing exposed to the cold), and the moisture on the bottom of my snow pants had frozen solid, making then clunk against my boots. A lot of people do not like cold, they hate it in fact, but there are many things that most people do not understand about snow, I think, that contributes to this dislike. I have been meaning to post about it, perhaps a top ten list of things people do not realize about snow/winter that is what makes it wonderful to me. I have spent a lot of time in the last few days outside playing in the snow, enjoying it, trying to absorb enough of the joyful feeling that it gives me to take back to Columbus and store up for the rest of the gray, rainy depressing winter that awaits me there. I will take deep snow and cold temperatures over slush, sleet, rain and temperatures constantly fluctuating between freezing and not, any day.

When I get back to Columbus I will post more - more pictures, more stories, now I am going to go enjoy being here.