Slowly Making Progress

Missed posting a blog yesterday, I think everything was finally catching up to me. I slept in until almost 9am which meant missing rush hour driving for Lyft, but obviously I needed it. Went across the hall instead and unearthed some more things to sell. I have 134 Beanie Babies left over from the craze in the 90's. I originally thought I might sell those to make a down payment on my first house. I was a lot younger then. I did post some stuff on eBay and I'll see how that sells. I also cleaned up the kitchen a little yesterday. I did read a few chapters as well so it wasn't a total loss of a day. I also went to the FedEx store and faxed some documents. I had no idea faxes were so obsolete these days that they have become expensive...$6 to fax 4 pages. It only cost me $0.42 to make copies.

This morning I got up and drove for Lyft. You do meet some interesting people. I met a young man from Seattle who was interviewing to get into medical school. He said he was going to tell them that it was because he watched ER when he was younger. I also met a man from New Jersey who was spending his second day in Chicago, he realized that he might want to get a warmer jacket. It has turned colder since yesterday, and the wind chill makes it feel like Winter. We are expecting a snowstorm on Saturday which might leave a couple of inches on the ground.

Just wanted to get something down today so I don't fall too far behind on the blogging. I realize that I'm basically just journaling and telling people about my day, but I also realize that some days I will have more things to write about and more things to share.

Thanks again for reading!

Today is the First Day I've Felt Winter

One of the nice things about living in California for 3 years was the mild winters. I could survive California winters with a sweatshirt most times and we rarely ran the heat. It was nice, but I always find it weird to put up a Christmas tree while wearing shorts or while everything is still green.

Luckily, I moved back to Chicago in November and it was surprisingly mild here in the Midwest. I had lunch with a friend the first week I moved back and it was in the 70's. I was happy about the mild temps because I had lost most of my clothes in my "transition" period in L.A. and only had 3 pairs of shoes (2 pairs of sneakers and 1 pair of flip-flops). After the mild weather we got snow every weekend for about three weeks. Again, I didn't mind it because I hadn't experienced it in a few years. It was pretty, made it feel more like the holidays, etc.  After the snow, another mild streak. It was almost 40 degrees on Christmas and all the snow had melted.

Now the holidays are over and apparently so is the mild weather. This week we have had wind chills below zero all day for the past 3 days. I've been feeding some sparrows with a bird feeder on my porch and usually I can go out and sweep the seed debris away without having to get bundled up. Yesterday, sweeping was cold. I went out Friday night and it was cold. Again though, I haven't minded it. I've missed seeing my breath and frost on the windows.

Today that changed. I got up early to go to the grocery store and I needed to put gas in the car. I bought some mittens when I first got back because I knew I'd need something. It's hard to pump gas in mittens. So standing at the gas station this morning waiting for the gas to finish it's journey into my car, I was cold. My face was cold, my hands were cold, and even though I was wearing warm boots and a jacket, I was cold. I was cold when I got back into the car and put my mittens back on. It took me almost the entire drive to the grocery store to warm up. Leaving the grocery store I was cold again. The bottle of juice I bought started to fog up as I walked from the store back to my car. My trunk hesitated before opening. The sun was shining, but I couldn't wait to get the groceries back upstairs, feed the sparrows and be inside for the rest of the day.

Winter is here and now I know it.