Snow!

 
 A wintery day in a small Wisconsin town. I think it's quite pretty, but the other residents seem to disagree. They say that I should wait until "it's so cold that the snow sparkles like diamonds." These are pictures of my lovely wife in front of our lovely home. She thought I was silly to make a tiny snowman.... Hey, I'm a Florida boy. Slushy or not, this snow is both exciting and pretty. We'll see if I think it's pretty in a few months! Luckily, we had no trouble driving in it. I went out and shoveled the sidewalk in the dark after it stopped snowing. I can see how that'll get real old real quick. My back is hating me now, and we only had an inch or two of accumulation! As I was shoveling, the snowplow went by. This is about three weeks early for the snowplows to be out.

How's the weather up there?

Okay, that's a question that I have heard my whole life (being relatively tall). My answer, as a mean teen, was to expectorate upon the smart-aleck questioner and say, "It's raining." (Okay, I only did that a few times-- at Camp Indian Springs.)

Now it's a question that I am hearing again, having moved from Florida to Wisconsin. It's funny how weather is relative. I'm doing fine with the cold so far. The low the other day was 19 degrees. I wore my new 650-fill goose down parka, and I was actually a bit too warm. My grandmother in Florida called last week and asked about the weather. I said it was cold, and she said, "Oh, it's cold here too! The low tonight is expected to reach 40!" Sheesh. The low this week is in the forties, and forecasters are calling it an Indian Summer!

Anyway, the weather up here is fine. We'll see if I still feel that way in mid-January.