a song in my head that burns so good on my tongue

It happened. It finally snowed. I let out the breath I didn't know I was holding in. The snow sparkles and stings my cheeks, and I can't help but smile. Winter is finally here, and I couldn't be happier.

The past week has been rather hectic. It seems that as Christmas and New Years approach, everyone wants to get together because they know that the holidays are so busy. I had so many people I wanted to see this weekend, and I really packed my weekend full.

Alyssa and Marley have both been ridiculously busy with school - its the time of the semester where everything is starting to come together. They've got their normal amount of homework and studying PLUS starting to prepare for finals, so it's been really hard to make time to see them. I also had four friends come from out of town - Britny and Nick from LaCrosse, and Ben and Amy from Oshkosh.

Britny, Nick, Ben, and Amy all had tickets to a concert for Friday night so while they were there I hung out with my friend Steph. Her husband was nice enough to take over babysitting duties of their son, so we could have a night out on the town. We went over to Alyssa's house for awhile to start with. It was a blast. Alyssa and Steph got along so well, and the three of us just talked, laughed, yelled, made fun of each other, told stories. It was one of those experiences where you know you're going to remember it for the rest of your life - not because anything particularly spectacular happened, but because you were happy in the truest, purest form.

After that Steph and I met up with the others for a bit, before we all headed home for the evening. I felt terrible for my four houseguests, because at 3:30 in the morning the fire alarm [falsely] went off in my building. Nonstop, for 45 minutes. Of course, we were all thankful that there was no emergency, but it definitely didn't make for a good night's sleep.

On Saturday morning the five of us went out for breakfast. I was able to take them to my new favorite place, Hubbards, and show it off. We got a nice big booth to sit in and were able to catch up over awesome [as always] food. And we all got dessert to go! [Hubbards desserts=awesome] After that the two couples headed their separate ways, and I baked myself some honey-wheat bread. [I'm hoping that all the kneading will give me killer arm and shoulder muscles.]

Saturday evening I was finally able to get together with Marley. We took a nice long walk through the winter wonderland that is State Street and the Capitol. There were Christmas lights out and the Capitol always looks so beautiful all lit up against the night sky, especially when it was snowing ever so slightly. We ended at my favorite coffee shop and afterwards I headed home for a night of knitting. [I'm in dire need of new mittens now that it has snowed.]

Of course, with snow on the ground, I can't wait to get out and go snowboarding. I'm probably going to wait to go until after Christmas time when we will have more real snow on the ground. So even though I'm getting a little antsy to get out, I'm SUPER excited to finally have snow!

Well, those mittens won't knit themselves, so off I go.....