Dear Winter,

We’ve had some good times. You finally gave us some snow. We made snow angels, a snow fort and even a snow man. We went sledding and had a couple of snowball fights. But then you went all crazy on me. You went from comfortable thirty degree temps to below zero. Winter, it’s damn cold out. My nose hairs freeze the second I step out the back door. Skyler’s nose looks like Rudolph’s because she just can’t shake that cold. The roads are all icy. My van struggles to get up the hill to my house. On the way home from school tonight, some people were driving forty miles per hour on the interstate. 40 MPH, Winter! Plus we had to weave in and out of car accidents. It was not fun. Help a mother out here and bring back the warmer temps and the fluffy snow. Thanks!

Forever yours,
Christine

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Christine,

What?!? You’re unhappy with my work? I guess you’re really going to be bummed this weekend then. I’m planning a whole new cold spell. I’m thinking maybe temps in the negative tens and twenties. Just for you.

Hugs and Kisses,
Winter

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Winter,

Screw you!!!

Me

Earlier this evening I was watching the news, like I do once or twice a year, and I was reminded why I don’t normally tune in to the local news. They were doing a story on car/deer accidents. Apparently this year there has been a high case of car accidents caused by deer running across the street. So the city is looking to find a solution. I assume a group of people sat around and brainstormed some ideas. I’m also going to go out on a limb and assume there was some beer and possibly some reefer at this gathering. Why? Because the idea they came up with was urine. Yes, you read that right, urine. They want to spray urine from deer predators up and down the roads. How would you like that job?

Some expert that was interviewed for the piece said that won’t work because urine contains salt and salt attracts deer. But somebody else said that hunters use doe urine to attract deer so why wouldn’t it work.

I think everybody is totally missing the point. THEY WANT TO SPRAY URINE ON THE ROADS. Ummm….ICK! Remind me never to go barefoot in this town. Ever.

When I went to bed last night my tummy was a little upset. We don’t have any upset tummy medicine [at least none that's not expired], so I just laid in bed in the fetal position and moaned about it.

Lee, being all kind and gentle, asked me if I was going to moan all night.

I said, “Don’t make me throw up on you.”

He said, “If you throw up on me, I’ll throw up on you?”

“Why would you do that?” I asked him.

“You don’t think I would throw up on you if you threw up on me?”

“Well I’d just throw up on you then if you threw up on me because I threw up on you.”

“Yeah, well I’d throw up on you because you threw up on me because I threw up on you when you threw up on me.”

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is what we discuss at midnight as we get ready to turn off the lights and go to bed. We are so romantic.

I woke up this morning to low water pressure. Apparently there was some kind of water emergency a few streets away. Lee said they dug up half the road. I don’t know exactly what went wrong up the road, but at my house we had water at just above a trickle. Have you ever taken a shower in a trickle of water? It’s not fun. It was like the shower head was mocking me. It was really just spitting at me? The water was warm, but it didn’t cover my whole body. So as I was washing soap off my chest, my butt was cold. As I was washing my hair my legs had goose bumps. I just couldn’t win

Then I got all the kids out the door, relatively on time for church. We rushed to the garage. They jumped in their seats and put on their seat belts. Then I looked down at my tire and it was flat. I took that as a sign from God that I just needed to stay home today. So I went back in to take a nap.

Now I have a full blown sinus infection. Can somebody please explain to me why I have a sinus infection with the works [stuffy nose, headache, throbbing cheek pain] when I’ve been on antibiotics for three weeks? I thought that my ENT put me on antibiotics so I wouldn’t have to go through this. Wasn’t that the point? Or is he just testing me to see if I can remember to take a pill every day?

Since I decided to stay indoors today, I thought I’d work on those New Year’s Resolutions I made earlier this year. I’ve been pretty successful with my resolutions this year. I guess it’s easier to stick with them when you just make fun goals.

My first resolution was to take more photos and figure out my camera. At the end of each year I put all of the previous years photos in to a “Year in Review” folder. And every year, when I do that I realize I didn’t take any pictures in January or February. That changed this year. I’ve already taken quite a few photos and January isn’t even over yet.

I didn’t mention it in my post, but I also want to learn more about Photoshop. Before I took that digital imaging class last term, I used Photoshop to resize photos. That was it. I’m sure I could have found a much cheaper program if that’s all I was going to do with it.

But after that class and some experimenting, that’s all changed. Today I scoured the internet for some new tutorials and gave some of my old photos a new look.

I took this photo I shot of Stonehenge in 2005 which is nice, but not fabulous.

And I turned it in to this.

Look how far I’ve come. I can do more than resize a photo now. I’m not going to win any awards, but I’m learning. And I’m happy with it.