Happy Thoughts

If you know me at all (or have ever read this blog), you know that I'm not a fan of winter. My dislike for the season has most definitely happened since moving to DC. I had no idea how lucky I was to get such a mild taste of winter growing up in the south. "Cold" to me used to be having to put on a light jacket for the months of January and February. Never did I need heavy coats, layers, winter boots, hats, gloves, and scarves.

The gray, cold, and insanely windy DC winter gives me a major case of Winter Blues. My blogging definitely suffers b/c I don't want to continuously blog about hating winter. We thankfully dodged a snow bullet this week as the storm decided to spare us.

But I'm here to share some happy thoughts that are getting me through this record-breaking winter. With the hopes of ending hibernation soon, Spring will be here soon!

1. Spring Training has begun! Even though I know the teams are in sunny Florida, the start of spring training means that opening day isn't too far. Just reading about my Braves and having them back together makes me happy. It's that time of year baseball fans can be excited in anticipation and all of our teams "have a chance!" I'm practicing my tomahawk chop!

2. I tried a brand new salad joint, Mixt Greens, that opened this week near my office. It's trendy to have the fresh, local, organic mantra right now. Mixt Greens calls it "eco-gormet." There are several similar restaurants around the city. But this week, I was sold on my Maui Mixt Green salad. It was absolutely delicious. And if I'm going to pay $10 for a salad, it better be. It was worth every penny. I went back the next day and tried the Dagwood salad, which was equally delicious.

3. Yummy discovery of popchips. Potato chips generally get a bad rep when trying to eat more healthy. And while the baked alternatives are getting better, they're still not great to me. Enter popchips. They're not fried or baked and they're all natural. I know, sounds gross. But let's just say that I found their website and entered my zip code to see where I can buy them! They even have a catchy advertising phrase: "Love. Without the handles." Only 3 points for any Weight Watchers.



4. Good TV (Life Unexpected, Big Love, The Good Wife, Glee) and Books (The Help, The Happiness Project, The Postmistress, and Paula Deen's memoir It Ain't All About the Cooking)
I recently picked up a copy of Entertainment Weekly. I was very happy to see some of my recent TV, movie, and book picks are getting rave reviews!

Not that I'm any sort of entertainment expert. This is probably just a case of "even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while." I couldn't have picked a better time than Winter 2010 to find these particular nuts.


5. Lent
Okay, so the season of Lent isn't typically a "joyful" time. But since I started observing it, it's always been one of my favorite spiritual seasons. The fact that we're given this time to reflect and prepare is one a lot of us need. And of course, with the coming of Lent, means my favorite holiday of Easter is soon to follow! I enjoy this daily Lent calendar on Busted HALO.

While I don't think I'll ever grow to like DC winters, I'm glad I have some happy distractions to keep me sane.

Sending Some Blog Love to South Africa!

My friend Shira has made several appearances on my blog. She told about her trip first trip to SC with me last year in this post and was the Silver Lining in this post.

She recently left to take advantage of a year-long opportunity in South Africa. I think I've been in denial about her leaving, it's just now really hitting me! I'm so excited for everything she'll be able to experience and I love getting updates and emails from her. I hope she doesn't mind if I share her blog with you! She wasn't sure if she'd have access to the internet and if so, how often. But she's been able to share several updates about her experience so far.

She's had to shoo away monkeys from her front porch and dodge humongous bugs. But this week, she's dodging an elephant! She puts some things in perspective, like appreciating rain, and keeps you laughing with a post about the language barrier.

Check out her South African adventure on Born on the Side of the Road!

Snowcation

snOMG, snomageddon, blizzaster, snobama, winter wallop, snowfecta, snoverkill, snopocolypse: the sequel.....whatever you want to call it, I've had enough!

Everyone knows by now that we (in the DC area) were SLAMMED last week by not one, but two huge snow storms. It started over the weekend and continued into last week. We couldn't get in to work for 4 days. If you count the weekend "snow days" that brings the snowed-in total to 6 1/2 days. A full week of preparing for the snow, thinking about snow, cleaning up from the snow, rinse and repeat.

Even my camera decided it had enough of snowy white pictures and decided to shut down. Thanks to my roommate for the snapshots from her camera! All of these were taken after the first big storm, before we were SO over it!

Seriously, it was above my knees....

Venturing out. All of that had to be shoveled....


Into piles taller than me....


I took advantage of a last minute flight to SC to get away from it all. And wouldn't you know, there was even snow in SC! The difference being that the SC snow was almost completely gone within 24 hours. Now THAT is how I prefer snow.

I flew back to DC this morning and there is still a LOT of snow on the ground. I think it will be with us until June. I'm coping with this record-breaking winter by dreaming of Spring. It can't get here fast enough!