Today the high in Madison is 55 degrees.

Can you hear the angels rejoicing? I don't think they've been this excited since a virgin gave birth in a manger a couple thousand years ago.

I grew up in Pittsburgh, so it's not like I never saw snow before moving to Wisconsin. I was accustomed to 2-hour delays, the occasional snow day, shoveling (read: watching my parents shovel), and sledding. All of those things are nice components of winter (unless you're actually doing the shoveling, I would suppose, not that I would know), and I'm a big fan of seasons.

But after this winter in Madison, I'm all for the permanent eradication of winter.

IT.

WAS.

SO. 

COLD.

Like can't start my car, don't go outside with any of your skin showing due to immediate frost bite risk, cold.

Every single flight delayed for the entire winter, cold.

If you ever go outside without a hat, even to walk 4 blocks, your ears hurt for hours, cold.

WHY did ANYONE ever CHOOSE to settle in this part of the country, cold.

You're driving to work and it's negative 19 degrees; but feels like negative 45, cold.

the lakes freeze every year, but this year was no exception (source of picture)

I heard that this is the 10th coldest winter in the history of Wisconsin since they, like, started recording this stuff (centuries ago?) - and it's the coldest in my company's history (since 1979).

What a great time to live in the cheese state! And a good first winter for Stephen to live in Madison! The way guests will describe trips to Madison is, "It's a whole different type of cold here."

There was also an trip last year where we were trying to walk to a piano bar, but starting running because we were freezing. Becky infamously proclaimed, "My eyes are cold." Which truly is how it felt most of this winter. Parts of your body you didn't even know existed were cold.

Although I've heard great things about the movie about "Frozen", I didn't see it because I thought the title hit a little too close to home. I think its sequel that clearly should be called "Melted" will be more up my alley.

But, now, there are signs of spring! I can see grass! The sidewalks aren't entirely covered in a treacherous layer of ice! I ran outside yesterday and didn't contract frostbite! I didn't wear a coat to work today (just a warm sweatshirt)! There are birds. There is life. There is hope. 

And, although all "sconnies" know that it will likely snow again, I'm hopeful we won't hit negative 19 in March or April.

I am happy to report, in honor of these warmer days, I may be changing my family motto to the most uplifting phrase I can think of right now: Winter is leaving. 

don't hate it cause you ain't it

Ahhh I've been gone for over a month. In my defense, February is the shortest month. Also, I went to Lewisburg, PA and San Juan, Puerto Rico during February! (Among other predictable work trips.)

For a nice juxtaposition, here are a couple pics:

the library on a snowy grey day in central PA (Ray Bucknell!)

mom and sis on a stroll near our hotel in San Juan

view from the balcony one morning!

I cannot post any more Puerto Rico pictures here because I haven't even managed to post any to facebook yet (sorry, Beck!). I can tell I'm getting older because I'm becoming increasingly worse at social media. Pretty soon I'm going to be tagging other people's photos and commenting on relationship break ups with "What happened???!"

Anyway, I do this thing where if I don't blog for a while and want to write a new post I feel like I have to post something awesome. Then I can't think of anything awesome, so I delay even more. The more I delay, the more awesome I feel the post needs to be, the less ideas I have. And so on.

This could be the basic infrastructure for most vicious cycles of unproductivity in life.

It gets to the point where I feel in the next post I either need to give each of my readers a free trip to Hawaii, or never ever blog again, and potentially we should just turn off the internet, you guys. Who needs it?

I struggle with extremes.

But then I reach the extreme where I'm like "anything is better than nothing" So, speaking of nothing, I decided to write to you about the goals I set last week.

I was traveling to South Dakota solo so wanted to spice things up. I decided to set 2 goals for the week:
1. Say "don't hate it cause you ain't it" three times in a professional setting
2. order some nice, comfy pajama pants online

WHOA. DREAM BIG.

I accomplished neither. The pursuit of number 1 is still ongoing - I decided to extend the timeline, as it turns out there aren't all too many chances to squeeze this stellar gem into conversation in an appropriate way. But it is one of my all-time favorite cocky phrases. Others in the top 10? "if you got it, flaunt it" and of course, the infamous, "it ain't trickin if you got it."

I do this thing where I continuously lie to myself about the affordability of J. Crew, so, in pursuit of number 2, I was trying to shop for pajama pants on J. Crew's website.

So glad I did. Because this:

Twelve hundred dollars. On an article of clothing that, by the way, you don't wear OUT OF THE HOUSE. This totally made me have flashbacks of my Bitter is the new black fashion post from a couple years back. Because, really, the only question in this case (to quote family guy) is HHHHHHHHHHwhy?

My favorite part? For $10, you can add a monogram. What's $10 to someone who's buying a $1,200 cashmere robe? I mean, that's 0.83% of the cost. If you're willing to spend hundreds of dollars on an accessory to your pajamas, why wouldn't you get it monogrammed? Might as well get it plated in 24 carat gold and while you're at it, where is the servant that can bring me my diamond-studded slippers? I can only sit at my table Saturday mornings drinking coffee if I know the clothing I'm wearing exceeds most people's weekly income.

This caused me to make goal #3: I just want to find the subset of the population who orders these robes, force them to watch endless videos on world hunger, buy them all snuggies, and call it a day. I am of course fearful that one of the cashmere-clad group will combat my effort with a sassy "don't hate it cause you ain't it." At which point, I'll be at a loss.