It's always sunny in Wisconsin

People have always sort of giggled when we've mentioned that we've been anxious to move to Wisconsin. We moved here in part because we wanted to be closer to my parents. But we also moved here because Jim was looking for Smalltown USA, where people know each other and are friendly, where we can make it anywhere around town within about 10 minutes. Jim was looking for wide open spaces, relatively low taxes, and reasonably good weather.

You might be looking at that last qualification and thinking "Reasonably good weather? In Wisconsin? Ha!" But actually, we have very good weather. Granted, it's gets *cold* here in the frozen tundra. But we don't have that much snow. We get barely any lake effect snow because we're on the west side of Lake Michigan. It's just that the snow we do get tends to hang on for a long time because it's so cold.

And we get a magnificent change of the seasons. It always annoyed Jim that there wasn't a true change of seasons while we lived in Atlanta. And you know what? We have a LOT of sunny days here. Today is a prime example. It's freezing out, admittedly. But the sun is shining full bore and it's really beautiful.

Days like today remind me of why we moved here. They remind me of Jim. I love to see the sun shining in the sky. It gives me hope. It reminds me that a thaw will eventually come, and things will get easier. Both literally and figuratively.

It's easy to use the blog as a my complaint mechanism. Especially since I'm second only to my kids in prize-winning whining. But in truth - I have so much hope. For me and for my kids. Sunny days like today - true Wisconsin days - JIM days - remind me that new things are on the horizon. The sun will shine again.

Oh, and by the way, I'm also feeling hopeful because we did a shopping trip to Wal-Mart this morning and the kids were great the whole time.