Adventure! Danger! Snow.

The fun, adventurous part of living in Montana?

You'd think it would be some sort of outdoor sport, wouldn't you? Skiing, or mountain biking. Nope. It's the weather.

Last weekend, 70 degrees and balmy. This weekend, 7 inches of snow, record-low temperatures (7 degrees!), and ice. We're thrust back into ice-on-the-car, snow boots, and sliding around corners. I like snow and all, and it's very pretty out, in a Christmas card sort of way. But you know? I'm kinda ready for consistent Spring, and no more piles of white stuff.

This is just a warning to those of you who really want to tell me how beautiful it is in your part of the world right now, with all those flowers and blooming trees and grass. Yeah. Don't do that.

Now, I've been tagged by Heather. As with all tags, I reserve the right to change it completely. So here are the rules I'm following:

The rules:

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.

The nearest book, I'm happy to say, is Lee Child's KILLING FLOOR. I just started it, but I'm in love with it so far. The voice is amazing.

Page 123, fifth sentence etc.:

It was clear Charlie didn't know anything. She thought her husband had been arrested because of some kind of mistake. Not because he was grabbed up in some kind of trouble which had just got two people murdered.

Whew, not a spoiler.

Now the rest of the rules were about tagging five other people, but I don't like to do that. So if you're reading this and you have a blog, consider yourself invited to play. If you want. :)

Brrrr

It was -9 degrees (F) this morning. My fingers and cheeks were numb for an hour. It's up to a balmy 13 now, and I have my sweater off and the window open. This is the joy of working on the 3rd floor of a building built in 1896. The heat is either on (roasting) or off (freezing). Right now, with the window cranked, it's almost right.

With the blast of arctic air, though, I'm rather glad that we're leaving for vacation soon. We always try to do a week in San Diego sometime in January or February--knowing that the winter blahs will hit right about now--and I'm sooo looking forward to it. Not least because we got tickets to the Cirque de Soleil. Huzzah!

After today's work, I just have to get 1000 more words on GG to get to my 50% goal before we leave. That I can, and will, do.

{happy}

Good Things

I'm here, I'm just distracted!

We got back in very late Saturday night/Sunday morning, and spent the weekend lazing around, playing, doing laundry, grocery shopping...stuff like that there. It was a nice vacation, but it's always good to be home too.

Oddly enough, it's much warmer here than it was in Sacramento. Our last couple of days it was about 30 degrees and foggy/damp; right now it's sunny and 52 here. Of course I vastly underestimated the heat, and I'm dying in a turtleneck sweater in my steam-heated + outside-heated office {pant}. Mental note: wear layers tomorrow!

1 Good Thing: people seem to have simultaneously (a) noticed that I was gone and missed me and (b) managed to limp along all right without me, with no major crises.

2nd Good Thing: I just scarfed a yellow cupcake with dark chocolate fudge frosting that Child and I made together yesterday. Yum.

3rd Good Thing: Pandora Internet Radio. Does anyone else know about this? It's free. You tell them one or more artists or songs you like, and they create a playlist for you. Then you give them feedback and they refine the selection, or you can add/subtract artists you like. It's awesome, and I'm addicted. I started out with Cole Porter, then added Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, and I'm pretty darn happy with the results. Yes, I am a throwback musically, and that's okay. One point about it that I love is if a song comes on that I don't like, I just hit the thumbs-down symbol and it immediately stops and never plays again. Cool.

I am limping a bit with the writing goals, but still progressing. Never give up. I'm also working mentally on how exactly I'm going to chop TMT up and put it back better, so that's coming down the pipeline.

Back to work now (and sweating).

Medieval Word of the Day: hidel-like: Secretly.