"Hope is like the sun, which, as we journey toward it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us." -- Samuel Smiles (Scottish author)

Now that January is but a gray, icy blip 

in our rear-view mirror, 

it must be time to turn our faces 

toward sunnier futures!

The first thing I can't help but point out is that it's actually much better to be in Minnesota today than in most of the rest of the country.  (And that's a true February rarity.)
 

Don't knock the weather; 9/10 of people couldn't start a conversation if it didn't change once in awhile.

-- Kin Hubbard

 

Wherever you are today, 

I hope you're safe and warm 

and making the most of the particular gift 

Mother Nature has placed 

outside your window 

for your enjoyment.

Here in MN, of course, we don't cotton too much to ol' Phil's prognostications -- we know, for instance, that regardless of what his shadow does, our shovels are going to keep doing their thing for another good six weeks at least.  

So I looked in my breakfast bowl of Alpha Bits instead to see if I could find ANY harbinger of spring there, and try as I might, I couldn't come up with a single spring-related word. The whole bowl seemed to be full of only "B" and "R", which can only spell "brrrrr".

Honest to goodness, the closest I could come is this:

Which I can only connect to spring because we were just discussing last night that our mortgage interest rate is due to reset in April and we should have already gotten busy refinancing.

To shorten winter, 

borrow some money due in spring.

-- W. J. Vogel

Not a terribly hopeful sign, I know.

So then I decided to reach into my Polka-dot Chinese Take-out Box o' Wit and Wisdom (home of my fortune cookie fortune collection) to see what I could come up with.

And the first thing I pulled out was this:

Tempting advice.  
But of course I immediately went back for another draw.  Next up was this:

Hmmm -- not bad. Could that mean shorts and sandals?  

Perhaps one more draw . . . and so lastly, this:

Aha!  I'm on the right track after all!  In fact, I was just thinking that the sunshine streaming in across my back as I type this felt a little stronger than last week . . . . dare I say . . . even warm?  (Okay, I'm also sitting directly beneath the heating vent as the furnace pumps away, but let's all walk on the sunny side of the street today, shall we?)



And now, I'd really like some Chinese food . . .
but perhaps first we should re-write the earlier quote:

To shorten winter, 

try to diet your way into your black pants 

by the end of February . . .

Rats. I've already indulged in Alpha Bits. 
Okay, point taken. 

Happy 
Groundhog 
Day!
(er . . . rear-view mirror day!)






ps. Come back tomorrow when I'll be running exactly the same post --
plus I'll see if I can get Sonny and Cher to sing "I've Got You, Babe".