>It’s not really warm enough, but I pulled on a pair of capri pants today instead of my weekend jeans. Oh, the glaring white skin of winter! It’s blinding.

It’s not really warm enough, but I went outside (in galoshes to protect from the mud) and looked over the new garden plot designated for tomatoes. I determined it needs a layer of mulch and a layer of topsoil.

It’s not really warm enough, but I took my Brewers baseball attire out of storage and thought about Major League Baseball.

It’s not really warm enough, but I brought out the lightweight jackets. I haven’t put away the winter coats; it’s highly likely that we’ll need them again before the garden is planted.

It’s not really warm enough yet, but…. fill in the blank and leave a comment!

>

I’ve been awarded the Sunshine Award! My friend Hannah from A Thought Bubble or Two graciously passed this recognition on to me. It’s not easy to look on the positive side when the snow is piling up and my head is throbbing and my nose is running. But when friends build up friends, the sunshine breaks through the clouds figuratively while we wait for the storms to ease in a more literal sense.

Here are the criteria for accepting this award:

Put the logo on your blog or within your post (right click and save),
Pass the award on to 12 bloggers,
Link the nominees within your post,
Let the nominees know they have received this award by commenting on their blog.

This is tough! I read so many blogs, and enjoy so many people online. Here’s a list. Sample and enjoy!

Janet at The Planet of Janet. She’s another contributor to Mid-Century Modern Moms, and her adventures in motherhood can make you laugh until you’re in tears.

Melissa at Green Girl! We live so close to each other, but we haven’t met face to face – yet. It’ll happen. Maybe she’ll help me figure out what went wrong with the orange marmalade.

Mary at Minnesota Matron. I’m not sure how she accomplishes all that she does with only 24 hours in a day, but I’m glad she fits a blog into her busy life.

Michelle at Scribbit. Motherhood in Alaska is both similar and different compared to motherhood in Wisconsin.

Joanne, the original and fabulous Punditmom! I found her through Momocrats and still follow her posts.

Josh, a.k.a. the World’s Strongest Librarian. He’s a fascinating writer, voracious reader, and positive voice in the world of disabilities.

Judy from Royal Ranch – and not only because she sent me a bag of their Naked ‘Nure llama manure compost tea mix. I admire her major efforts to increase her own green living and that of her Colorado town.

Earth Muffin! We are kindred spirits: teachers, eco-conscious, and more. She posts sporatically, but it’s worth reading when she does.

A relatively new blogger but wise-beyond-her-years teacher, Liberty Rose of Teacher Ponders. I knew she was amazing in the classroom; her adventures beyond school walls have been unbelievable.

Flea, blogging at Flea’s World in Tulsa, Oklahoma, who makes me laugh daily. Look for Fred and Bessie, but watch out for Mr. Monkeysuit!

Jenn from Mommy Needs Coffee. Even though her dog ate Flat Stanley, I still love her. With a blog name like Mommy Needs Coffee, how could I not feel a kindship?

Leah at Suddenly Frugal. She brings sunshine in the form of possibilities and realities. The fact that she’s also very eco-conscious makes her suggestions even better.

Enjoy my dozen, and look for their suggestions, too!

>Long ago, when I was a teenager, and great woolly mammoths roamed the high school campus, I listened to a radio trivia contest one weekend a year. I enjoyed the crazy music that ranged from bad to worse, the mock advertisements for ridiculous and irreverent products, and of course, the trivial questions. (Who were the fairies in Disney’s Sleeping Beauty? Flora, Fauna, and Meriweather. Come on, ask me a hard one.)

Then I joined a Trivia team. This was still in the prehistoric times; rotary dial phones! We’d use the tip of a pen to dial the numbers so that our fingers wouldn’t get blistered. Really. Books, encyclopedias, and almanacs were our main sources for information that we didn’t already possess in our ever-evolving brains. (The hotel in Psycho? Bates Motel, of course. And Janet Leigh hid the money in a folded up newspaper.)

I played for this team until I transferred schools and began attending classes on the very campus that hosted the contest. By then the phones were push-button types, and the woolly mammoths had moved to less populated areas Up North, but our main information sources were still print books. (Winnie the Pooh lived in the Hundred Acre Wood under what name? Sanders.)

Fast forward several years, through contributions to a few more trivia teams, a marriage, and two kids. We now hosted a team in our home. It was a smaller team, not a top three finisher, but we held our own. Proudly, we invited people to share our home with the bunnies and the books and the new technology: cordless phones and Internet access. We still used a radio boom box, a white board for keeping track of team scores, and a spiral notebook for writing down questions. The woolly mammoths had retreated toward Canada in search of glaciers. (In the movie The Blue Brothers, what is the license plate number of the Bluesmobile? BDR529)

Telephones and radio have changed, but the Trivia contest continues. The radio has gone Internet only, which has actually expanded the contest to people in faraway locations that might still have woolly mammoths. Chuck and I no longer compete for the worthless prizes (the prizes have to be as trivial as the questions), but Amigo plays on his own. He listens to the Internet broadcast, searches for answers online, calls them in on the cordless phone or borrows my cell when the cordless’ batteries go dead. He and Chuck take a shift at the radio station answering phones to take people’s answers — each team that plays finds a way to make a contribution like this to keep the contest running smoothly. (What was the original name of the Popsicle? The Epperson Ice Pop, or the Epsicle)

Trivia (it needs no other qualifying details; all other contests pale in comparison) is a crazy and fun weekend with no equal. Some people take off for warmer climates in January; we’ve always stocked up on knowledge, coffee, hot cocoa, and phones. It keeps us warm. (When Frank Zappa was in ninth grade, he won a Fire Prevention poster contest. What did his poster say? “No picnic. Why? No woods. Prevent forest fires.”)

I still kind of miss the mammoths.