Georgia Winter

For those of you who don't know, I was born in Minnesota and spent most of my life there. I've only lived in Atlanta for six years--that's when my job was relocated down there. I was thinking about this recently and doing a little mental compare/contrast with Minnesota.

In January Atlanta was caught up in some cold snaps. The temperatures were in the 40s for highs.

Me in MN: 40s! OMG, it's so warm! I wish it would stay this way all winter.
Me in GA: OMG, it's so cold! It needs to warm up. I can't take this arctic air!

Me in MN: It's the end of October and temps are in the 30s. I don't care if you guys make fun of me for wearing my winter jacket, winter hat, and mittens. I'm cold.
Me in GA: I'm not putting on my damn winter jacket. I hate that thing. It's in the 20s (low temps), but I just have to run from the car to the building.

Me in MN: Two inches of snow? Damn it, that's a freaking nuisance.
Me in GA: Two inches of snow? OMG, I better bring my laptop home so I can work from the house and I have to get to the grocery store now!

In my defense, the drivers in Atlanta can't handle driving in the rain. Snow brings out extra insanity and I don't want to be on the road with them. The working from home and groceries are so I don't have to leave my house until the insanity has passed.

Even my dad, who's only lived down here two years after living in Minnesota for most of his adult life, has changed. Now, if it's in the 20s or 30s at night, he won't go to his lodge meetings. He tells me it's too cold to go out. This makes me chuckle because it wasn't too cold for him when he lived in Minneapolis. :-) I'll still go out in the cold, but I'm not happy about it. (I almost put "cold" in quotes because seriously, 30s in Minnesota in January is called the January Thaw.)

I thought I'd share my change in winter thoughts because it struck me as ironic. And it's 29 degrees as I'm writing this--my dad just said, "I'm glad we don't have to go out today."

The S Word Was Spoken

I didn't want to interrupt my saga about moving, so I'm posting this well after the fact, but I thought it was kind of amusing.

I was born and raised in Minnesota. I spent most of my life there. I've driven in snow since I was old enough to have a license. Hell, I drove in two feet of snow. I bitched about it, but I did it. And then I moved to Georgia.

After 6 years (SIX?!? OMG!) in Atlanta, I've started reacting like everyone else does here when I heard a forecast of snow. As I'm writing this, the National Weather Service has predicted snow for Friday night, maybe up to an inch. In Minnesota an inch of snow is called a nuisance. This is not the case down in Georgia.

Grocery shopping day is normally on Saturday morning. I'm now grocery shopping on Thursday just in case the snow starts earlier than expected on Friday. And yes, there's bread and milk on the list, but only because we needed bread and milk. :-) No eggs. This is actually not crazy. After Snowmageddeon when people were trapped in their cars for 24 hours or abandoned their cars on the freeway and walked off, I've erred on the side of caution. (BTW, I was not trapped in my car, but it did take my van pool 3.5 hours to get home, making it the longest snow-related commute I've ever experienced.)

I can already imagine the chaos at the grocery store, if not on Thursday when I'm planning to go, then definitely on Friday. Part of me is still sitting here mentally shaking my head over the thought of rearranging my whole schedule for one inch of snow. Let's pretend one inch of snow equals 12 inches of snow in Minnesota. You know what I would do if they predicted a foot of snow in Minneapolis? I'd buy gas, period. Not one other thing.

But I'm not in Minneapolis anymore. I'm buying the groceries.

Edited to add: We got 3/4 of an inch of snow overnight. You can still see the grass through the snow. The Minnesotan in me scoffed at this pitiful amount. The person who's seen how they drive in Atlanta is grateful this was a Saturday morning.

 

Song of the South

Saturday my dad and I went grocery shopping for Thanksgiving. He and my mom wanted a pumpkin pie (I don't like it) and Publix had one from their bakery on sale, so they decided that was the pie. My dad had to go make a return, so I began the shopping.

Right at the front of the store was a selection of sale pies. I looked at them, saw the ones that looked like pumpkin, and took the best looking one.

Later, while we were in the freezer section, my dad bought a second pumpkin pie.

After an hour of torture (I hate grocery shopping), we checked out and put everything in the car. My dad starts studying the receipt. Suddenly he asks, "Did we buy a sweet potato pie?"

I'm like, "No, I grabbed a pumpkin." And then I started thinking about it. What does a sweet potato pie even look like? I realized I had no clue. "Maybe," I said after a few moments, "I messed up and grabbed the wrong pie. We'll have to check."

Sure enough as we unload the bags, I see sweet potato pie.

As I looked at the pie, I realized what had happened. We don't eat sweet potato pie in Minnesota. Maybe some people do, but it's not in large enough numbers for grocery stores to sell them. So in Publix (in Georgia), I looked down, saw a pie that looked like pumpkin and just put it in the cart. It never occurred to me that it could be anything except pumpkin.

My parents decided they'd try it. The verdict? It tastes like pumpkin pie. :-)

Adding Touches To My Home

In my Minnesota house, I didn't have a lot of wall space to hang pictures, but my new home in Georgia have space I need to fill. This is something I'm going to do a few pieces at a time because of the cost.

My first two paintings arrived last week. (Should I call them prints since they're not originals?) One of them isn't up yet and won't be until I get the handyman out to do it. I want it perfectly centered in the area over the fireplace (it's a square made by molding) and I don't think I can manage that. :-) Besides, the picture is 32 inches square and that's difficult to handle.

But the second piece of art was going in a place where I was able to hang it myself and that's what I did on Saturday.

The picture is level, it's the camera that's a bit angled. Also, my green walls don't photograph well, but in person are a rich, vibrant olive green. If they really were the shade in the photo, I would have had my kitchen painted. :-) I put it up between a door to the patio and a window in the eat-in part of my kitchen.

Apologies for the sun glare on the glass. The print is an abstract done by Alma Lee, an artist from Wisconsin. (FYI, I bought the print. I'm not getting compensated even indirectly.)

The other print, the one for over the fireplace, is also abstract with lots of bright colors. It's done by a different artist, and I'll share once I finally get that put up.

Hello New Home

Saying goodbye to my old home was hard--I loved it so much--but it enabled me to move forward and have a home in Georgia. I found the house relatively quickly on my hunt--I thought it would take me forever to see something I liked. I closed on my new home July 19th. Yes, one week after I closed in Minnesota.

As I'm writing this, I've had my house a little more than one day. It doesn't feel like my home yet. It's not too surprising, I guess. If I remember correctly, my house in MN felt strange in the beginning, too. Plus, the movers don't arrive with my things for another two days.

The week between closings was hugely hectic. I don't recommend closing on two homes 1100 miles apart in 1 week. I was scrambling to get utilities setup right up until the day before the closing. I wasn't 100% successful. Comcast can't come out to hook me up until 2 weeks after I closed. That's right, as you're reading this, I am WITHOUT INTERNET in my home! Gah!

Let me introduce you to my new house.