Bits and Pieces

Well, the weather is finally being wintry here. After an oddly warm January, it's now snowy and twenty-one degrees outside. It's not going to get to thirty today. Even though I'm not the biggest fan of the cold, it is beautiful outside. Here is the view from our balcony:

Some days I wish I could share my drive to work with all of you. Today was one of those days. There is snow perched on every branch of every tree, the sky is blue and pink and gold, and the world seems peaceful. If I have to pick one thing I love about winter, that would be it. It seems peaceful. I'm hoping the snow sticks around until next weekend (which it should, it's going to stay really cold here this week) so that I can go cross country skiing out in the woods by my parents' house.

We found out the not-so-fun way this weekend that my panic attacks are not limited to me driving at night. I apparently just have to be in the car. Throw in some wintry-crap-mix weather (freezing rain and snow) and I get to be a basket case for the whole hour and a half home. The drive should have only taken about thirty minutes. I managed to not completely freak out the whole way, but had to do a lot of deep, slow breathing which kind of freaked Aaron out.

Whirlyball was a blast! We all kind of sucked and no one scored much until the last two games, which I sat out. I wonder if there's any correlation there. Anyway, there are pictures of our whirlyball adventure at my flickr site. Just click this picture:

Email is down today at work for the second work day in a row, and I am going through major withdrawal. They are trying to prevent us from getting the worm that is rumored to be going around, so they have blocked all personal email. I usually check my email about 20 times a day as some friends and I email back and forth a lot. Going from 20 to zero is making the work day go by a lot slower.