Countdown To Spring, bugs and other stuff.

It has been a minute since I have posted to my blog. This year is already speeding by. Today is the coldest day of the year here in the Chicago so far. We awoke to temperatures below zero and with windchills sitting at -22! This is the kinda day where the hairs in your nose freeze when you take a breath. It is not fun. At least the sun is shining! There are only 60 days until Spring although that doesn't mean it won't still be snowing in March. Chicago weather is very sneaky. We might not see our 1st real Spring temps until May. One of my dreams is to spend an entire Winter in a warm climate. I am seriously considering moving to Australia, after watching how beautiful a country it is on Oprah all week. Not much of a big snake and bug person though, so I will have to work on that one. We have normal sized bugs here. They have spiders the size of my children in Australia! While we are on the subject of insects, I am SO glad that my boys were never the kind that collected bugs and things. They were more the occasional shell and rock type of guys. Don't think I could have handled if they had been bug collectors. My cousin poured a jar of grasshoppers down my back when I was a child and I never recovered from that. To this day, I try not to walk near tall weeds in fear that a locust might jump out at me. When I was staying in the Bahamas, I remember my first encounter with a "wood roach". These things were the size of my shoe! They hung out on the trees and took flight when rain was coming. During one such rain storm, one landed on my shoulder. I almost removed my arm from my body trying to get it off. I won't even tell you the story about the Amazon Rainforest sized centipede I met in my Aunt and Uncles house in Freeport. Then there was that giant cockroach in Puerto Rico, that my good friend Tanya took a picture of as it rested on my leg. Hmmm? Do I really want to countdown to Spring? There aren't any bugs in the winter. No mosquitoes, spiders, dragonflies, etc...Yeah, I will continue my countdown. I miss lighting my grill and watching my boys play basketball in the backyard. I miss hearing the song of the birds in the early morning, growing strawberries and driving with the windows open. So, as I put on my 3 layers of clothes today, I will have a warm place in my heart. Springtime is coming....Eventually.