Come on, Spring. You can do it!

I'm blogging this morning from my living room. Shadow is curled up on the ottoman by my feet, and the sun is streaming in the window, shining off the thick crust of snow that still covers my back yard. I know that this must be tough for my readers south of the Mason-Dixon line to picture, but there is still snow on the ground here. Not "a smear of snow in a north-facing corner" or "a grubby grey pile of snow and crud that has been slowly melting in the mall parking lot". There's still a real layer of snow on the ground.

COME ON, Mother Nature! It's Spring!

I should point out, though, that when I left for work Monday morning, it was about 25 degrees. This is neither surprising nor unusual -- since December, it's been anywhere from about -2 to 35 when I've left for work on Mondays, and 25 is pretty close to average. But on this past Monday, it felt different. Maybe it was optimism, maybe it was the sun creeping Northward in the sky (up here, in the middle of winter, the sun briefly says "Hello" from the South) ... but SOMETHING in the air made me say, "You know ... it's going to get warmer. The weather has turned the corner."

So ... Other than that, things are going OK. I've fully covered from my weekend of food poisoning and heel slicing. Lots of stuff planned for the weekend, including some cycling. Did my first ride of the season last week (more of this in a later entry), and it was ... actually, pretty good.