I took my last sip of Diet Coke on July 13, 2016.
I had previously given up Diet Coke for a long stretch, but fell off the wagon sometime after the 1-year mark. I vowed to try again, and take it one day it a time.
It has now been 899 days, or 2 years-5 months-16 days, or 128 weeks-3 days….and COUNTING!
And the DC free beat goes ON!
Winter is upon us once again, so it seems appropriate that I (finally!) write up list item #6, Visit Minnehaha Falls in the wintertime (as in last winter, in January 2018).
It took at least 4 years of living in Minneapolis before B and I visited Minnehaha Falls for the first time. And, since our first visit, it's become one of my favorite nature spots in the Twin Cities. Its beauty and majesty shines through in every season. However it wasn’t until last January that we finally made it for a winter visit to the falls.
I don’t remember the exact temp, but it may have been sub-zero. I do remember we were stir-crazy enough from being cooped up inside that we couldn’t be bothered by the shiver-me-timbers weather conditions. And, we lasted about 15 minutes before hightailing our frozen arses right back to the car.
Don’t let the blue skies fool you…it was c-c-c-cold!
We couldn’t get down to the mouth of the falls because the staircase had morphed into an icy death luge. But that didn’t stop some other “daredevils” from gripping the railing and skating their way down the slope. These intelligence-and-common-sense-challenged folks were promptly met by a cop at the bottom of the falls who wrote them a ticket for stupidity.
Definition of a slippery slope. Cop and ticketed idiots at the bottom of the staircase not pictured.
While we couldn’t get up close and personal with the falls from below, the toothy, icy, menacing grin of the falls even from a distance casts an eery vibe. OOooooeeEEEeeee!
Mwahahaha…winter’s coming for you!!!!!
So far, the temps this winter have been mild, but I’m not fooled. The wicked grin of frozen falls is surely surely just around the corner. Brrrrr! Get ready, Minnesotans…winter is coming for you!
You know what? I've spent a lot of my life feeling like I am waiting for "my turn." I've held onto a ridiculous belief that other people are worthy of the good stuff, and I am meant to wait for whatever is left over. Over and over, I have bought into the thoughts in my head that have whispered to me (and sometimes screamed at me) that I am unqualified, uncool, and and uninteresting...that I am slow to catch on and that I will never catch on.
Here's what I have to say to those thoughts...Whatever with a capital WHATEVER.
Fuck that bullshit noise, I'm a badass.