Hello, Utah sky

I am not one of those people who hates winter. In fact, I spend a lot of time each year looking forward to it. The image of sitting in a warm family room while a storm rages outside, or the thought of going sledding at the golf course with a bunch of other "lawbreakers," is what draws me to this particular season, not to mention the magic the holidays bring.

But after New Year's, the warm fuzziness of winter goes away. The holidays are over, it's time to go back to reality, and we're looking at 10-11 months before we can feel the magic again. The recovery from Christmas break is the hardest transition I have to make all year.

But life goes on. Even without presents and Christmas smells, the new year brings a lot of good changes--even in the weather. For the first time all year, I actually saw the sky this week.

The worst part about winter for me is the bitter cold combined with the yucky smog. And all year so far, that's what we've been getting. The sun never really comes out, even if the day gets brighter, and the sky is always clouded over with grey . . . stuff.

So when I walked out of my office building on Monday, I was delighted to see blue skies, and even a bit of sunlight, above me. Even better, it was pushing 40 degrees. I hadn't realized how much I had missed the sky until I was able to finally see it. I guess I'm not totally immune to the whole winter depression thing.

My drive home has been even better because the sunsets have been fantastic, especially when I hit that corner in Spanish Fork and all I can see is orange and purple skies reflecting off the snow-covered mountains. Combining that with all of the pot holes that are STILL cluttering the road (despite UDOT's inconvenient attempts to fix them), I'm surprised I haven't run into a lot of accidents. Or, um, caused any. I know that I certainly get distracted when I see something pretty--my focus shifts from the road to trying to figure out how to work the camera on my iPod, and then to trying to hold it and the steering wheel steady as I try to capture the beauty I am seeing. I really should stop doing that, because I never get good pictures and it's just distracting me from enjoying the scene anyway. And it would probably be bad if I crashed into someone, althoug I am quite talented at driving without my hands.

Usually I wait till about February to say this, but I am ready for spring to get here. Enough of this cold, yucky winter. I want more blue, sunny skies. Please.