5 January 2011

Yesterday was overcast, the heavy, monotonous kind that completely covers the sky. But walking back from the school to my car, I noticed over the Carson range a piece of blue sky surrounded by white; in that break in the clouds, I saw the sun shining on the top of the peak. It gave me this strange hope, as if it was a secret I had just discovered. As I was walking the dog around my neighborhood a few minutes later, I noticed there was more and more blue appearing, and the heavy cover was breaking up. By mid-morning there was sun out my window.

This morning when I looked out from my bedroom upon rising from bed, things looked white. It took me a second or two to realize that it was fog. It was a light fog, driving was no problem, but the mountains looked hazy, and the sun shining through made things rather lovely. But it was cold. Not that I felt any colder inside my fleece jacket, but my exposed skin felt almost stinging with the cold. I figured it was the humidity, although I noticed the temperature in the car said it was 23˚ out, which is colder than usual, I think.

I went grocery shopping right after that, instead of coming home first. Trader Joe's was practically empty, and I could actually stop and consider the things I wanted to buy instead of pushing my cart in the queue of all the other shoppers, and grabbing what I could when I saw something that caught my attention. I actually could look at things and see all there was and think about what we might eat. But it felt almost overwhelming, so I grabbed my usual things quickly, and picked up a few new things. That's pretty much what I usually do, although I bought more vegetables this time, and no alcohol. I ended up spending less money. I did get a gingerbread house kit for 99 cents.

The mountains looked really interesting coming out of the store, but today's overcast has been breaking up as well, and now the sky is blue and sunny. My sister wants to move to New Mexico where there is a lot of sun, but I told her that they count the days of sun by whether or not there was sun that day. If it later snows, the morning sunshine still counts towards the daily total. It might not be what she thinks it is.