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Another snow storm is headed our way tonight – I can’t wait! I’m really one of those “dreaming of a white Christmas” kind of people, and I wouldn’t mind a bunch of the white stuff so I’d have a good excuse to curl up in a blanket with some hot chocolate and watch a movie or play games with my family. But we’ll see what happens. Hopefully it just doesn’t pass us by like usual.
Today I’m excited to introduce you to another member of our staff. Rebecca Ragain is our web editor and one of our newer employees, but she has been such a welcome addition to our team.
She writes:
I’m grateful for the sun. But not in that “we need food to live and plants need sun to make food” kind of way. In Portland, Oregon, where I lived for 13 years, plants go gangbusters – they get all the sun they need. But for about 9 months of the year, this sunlight is diffused by a layer of low-hanging clouds that hides the horizon, enveloping Portlanders in a cocoon of misty grey.
When the sun did come out, I’d follow the bright patches around like a cat, moving around the living room with my book every half hour as the shadows shifted.
When I decided to leave Portland, I eliminated more than half the country as potential places to live, based on the number of sunny days those areas get in an average year.
Portland gets 144 sunny days per year.
Here in southern Idaho, even when it’s cloudy directly above, you can almost always see across the desert to where the sun is shining on another area, whether it’s Boise (206 sunny days) or towards Elko, Nevada (229 clear days).
When I drive east to work in Jerome, Idaho (210 sunny days), more often than not I can watch the sun climb in the sky, mostly unobscured by clouds. In the evenings on the way home, I see it set, creating splashes of orange and hot pink in the sky on its way down, drenching the corn fields with a pink-gold light that is miles away from the greys and deep greens of the Pacific Northwest. I’m grateful for that.
– Sunny day data from Sperling’s Best Places
Rather ironic that she chose to be grateful for the sun on a day when I’m hoping for a good snowstorm! LOL! But I have to agree with how beautiful our sunsets our here in southern Idaho and how they bring a smile to my face as I drive home – gorgeous! Thank you, Rebecca, for another great reminder of how blessed we are to live where we do!
May you and your family and friends enjoy a safe and enjoyable holiday season in the coming weeks. Merry Christmas to you and yours!
progressiveforage 