Warmer Days

Wow, still catching up on a lot of things after another great trip to Maui. After being greeted last Sunday with frigid temps and eventually some lake effect snow for a few days, we’ve finally thawed out and made it to over 60° F for a change. I event went rollerblading during lunch on Thursday, which was great.

It looks like we’re about to get some drenching rain this weekend, followed by a smaller cold snap, but that’s cool. We’re not letting the rain bother us today because we’re planning to get all of our spring cleaning done, or at least started. Honestly, my home office here looks like it was hit by a tornado. Yikes! We did a little impromptu shopping last night after dinner to get a few room organizers that I hope will straighten things up a little (okay, a lot).

Trip Details

We’re still going through a lot of our post-trip activities as well. Seeing that this was our 4th trip to Maui, we’ve done this a few times already. Cindy started uploading some photos to her Facebook, but never finished. I was writing journal entries for our trip on our Maui blog, but I still have a week left with that, too. We still haven’t gone through all the photos we took to get some of them printed, we have new paintings we picked up while on Maui, and photos in frames from last year’s trip still waiting to be hung. :)

Hopefully, once everything gets back to normal around here, we’ll be posting more regularly again. At this point, travel wise, we’re thinking of going up to Door County for my birthday in April (6 weeks away) and possibly going back to Maui for a week in September for a photo festival and workshop. More on that soon.

Some Weather We're Having, Eh?

I'm sitting here at Starbucks during lunch, like I have been doing for almost every workday since October. With the unseasonable, and possibly record-tying, warmth today, I switched up my drink order to a Passion Tea Lemonade, and started reflecting on how long it's been since I've had one of these guys.

Of course, it will be my (non-alcoholic) drink of choice starting next week when we're back on Maui. But wouldn't you know it, we book a tropical vacation in the middle of winter to escape all this cold and snow, and the week before we leave, we get a heat wave and the snow all melts!  I guess my threat to not come back from Maui until all the snow is melted is pretty much useless now. :)

I also wanted to leave you with just one last image for when you get back inside from being outdoors enjoying weather.  This was taken back on December 1st, before all the major snow hit us.  Doesn't that seem like it was soooo long ago?

The Cold Getting To Me

Hard to believe it's only the end of January and I'm already saying enough with this weather. Me, the one who grew up in a hockey rink 10 months out of the year. Me, the one that was rollerblading in 30 degree weather before Thanksgiving and ice skating outside with temps in the teens.  Me, of all people.

I don't know whether it has anything to do with the record low temps, the fact that it was way cold, way early, or what. I've never felt this way about the cold. I don't remember ever having a problem with it, after all these years.  I just remember toughing it out. I mean, in when I played hockey in high school, I was tough. It was my job to knock peoples' teeth out. Okay, that only happened once, but like I told the suspension board, it was a clean hit. :)

Kidding aside, I've been having an unusually harder time this year. I think my fingernails are permanently blue, and I wake up each morning completely frozen from the back of my spine to the front of my chest. My entire core, bitter cold. Day in and day out for the past 4 weeks or so. It's so odd, and no fun at all.  

But why this year? Why now? Cindy thinks it because I've lost so much weight and not as insulated as previous years.  I guess, but this was might weight in high school, when I had to walk home from school in this weather.  You know, barefoot and uphill, both ways. :)

Not that complaining about it is going to help, just needed to get it off my chest. In two weeks time, we be back on Maui and this cold will be a forgotten memory. And when we get back in March, I want all this snow gone, you hear me?

Difference a Week Makes

Boy what a difference a week can make here in Chicago, at least as the weather's concerned.

Today, it was a very pleasant 30° F for a good portion of the afternoon, something that I don't think it has done much since Xmas. As we're getting ready to back out to the United Center for the Hawks game tonight, I can't help but think of how darn cold it was just 7 days ago when were at the UC last.

Contrast today's 30° weather with last Wednesday's -30° wind chills and 2 straight days below 0 air temps, and you get a good understanding of what I'm talking about. Tomorrow, in fact, we're forecast to be above freezing as well, making it a great chance to get back out to the outdoor rink for a Thursday night skate (plans still pending).

But alas, these temps won't last. Come Saturday, we're back into the frigid cold and single digits for a high on Sunday. Sigh. There's talk of snow on Monday, so that should be fun. Hopefully, there's only a few more of these winter weather posts left before we leave for Maui next month. And then, after that, it will be March. Sweet.

Where'd the snow go?

As if the Chicago weather in this month of December hasn't been unbearable already, it just got a little weirder.  It seems like after weeks of the same weather pattern of frigid temps, then tons of snow, and again followed by more cold, mother nature decided to make it a little more interesting.

With a mild warm-up yesterday to about 44°F, today we're now looking at a high approaching 60°F, and boatloads of rain to help wash away all that snow cover we've gotten used to. And when I say boatloads of rain, I'm mean they're predicting up to 3" in some areas. When you take about 10" of snow cover from the last few weeks and throw in those types of temps and 3" of rain, you're in for some pretty nasty flooding.

We already saw some of the streets getting water last night when we were coming home, and now at 9am this morning, almost all of the snow on the ground outside of our balcony is gone. Just like that, gone!

Looking at the radar, it appears that the rain should let up in about an hour or two, but coming back after a short break.  And then for tomorrow? Back down below freezing with high winds. Go figure.

Guess What? More Snow

Yes, as if you thought the frustrating pattern of...

Large snowfall, frigid temps, large snowfall, frigid temps, ...

Need another chapter, we'll it's here. It started snowing again waaaaaay early this morning, and for pretty much the entire day now it's been coming down with various amounts on intensity. Just around 3pm or so, while it was still light enough out, it looked rather nice with those giant snowflakes like we say Saturday night. Wishing I had taken a photo earlier, but now that it's darker, however, it's lost most of its charm.

The current predictions have this weather pattern going until at least tomorrow afternoon, and just for fun, switching from snow over to sleet and maybe rain depending on how warm it gets. All this, and no snow in the forecast for Xmas day.  What gives?  I guess that extra day this leap year is throwing off the schedule.

Anyway, talk of temps in the 40's this weekend is still a possibility, although, it will probably make the snow and ice even worse than it is now.  We'll see if they're right about December being the worst of the winter weather this year.

More Than Cold

Was checking out the weather here just north of Chicago and moments after sunrise.



Brrrrrrr. Doesn't seem like much of a choice between here and Hawaii, does it? Happy Winter Solstice.

Update

Hasn't gotten much warmer this afternoon!

Frigid Friday

Clear skies, bright sunshine, and a gentle breeze. If it were June, it would be gorgeous outside. But alas, here we are less than 2 weeks away from Xmas and that trio of weather conditions means cold, cold, cold. The dashboard thermometer was reading 11F when I was leaving for lunch just a few moments ago, and it's not lying. Wind chills this morning were being reported at -4F as well, and that's not even with a strong wind!

Is it February yet?

Now I'm just complaining for the heck of it. After all, I have lived here all my life. It's really just a little satire for the blog here, that's all. It has gotten to be about as cold as it was in Door County last weekend, even though there were reports it was supposed to be near 40F tomorrow.  We'll see.

Anyway, I'm just writing a little note while sitting here at Starbucks like I do every day around this time during lunch. From the drive out to the office this morning, it looked like it was going to warm up at least a little, and I had started thinking about finding a place to skate tonight while the Hawks beat up on Colorado. Seeing that it is really only picture perfect outside and not really temperature perfect, that will have to wait until at least Sunday. Bummer.

Back to the original plan of watching the game tonight. Go Hawks!

Rain, rain, and more rain

Boy, it seems like we're getting all the rain that we where missing this summer just in this past week along. Now, I know I can't complain because of all the hurricane activity along the East Coast and the Gulf this past month or two. That certainly puts things into perspective.

It is the weekend, finally, and after my first full week of my new early morning hours, I feel pretty happy with the change and how my body has responded to it rather quickly. To keep in that habit, at least for the time being, the concept of sleeping in on the weekends now means 6:30am instead of 5:00am during the week. Doesn't sound that much better, does it?

With summer winding down, there are fewer opportunities for us to get out on the bike trails and, for me at least, strap on the rollerblades for a few hours. We originally were going to have a picnic at the forest preserves today with a few friends from work, but that's obviously not going to happen. I actually didn't get a chance to skate at all this week, but I'll spare the details on that. Cindy and I are heading out to Schaumburg today to go to dinner for my aunt's birthday, and had planned to spend time on the trails at Busse Woods before that, but that's not going to happen either.

Aside from the weather, this time next week we'll be in Door County, WI for the first time, and we're looking forward to that. I just ordered a new camera from Amazon for the trip, and it should be here by Tuesday just in time. I'm looking forward to taking lots of photos and trying it out, as well as just relaxing and soaking up the not-so-hectic life for 4 days. Hopefully it will help hold us over until our Maui trip in February, or at least until the holiday time off for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Don't know if I'll be posting here again before our trip next weekend, but I'll try to make a point of blogging about our activities while we're there.

Mahalo.