A science lesson

Last weekend, as Matt and I were driving through the neighborhood, he asked me if I knew why some roofs had snow on top of them and some didn't.

I've always assumed it had something to do with the angle of the sun. That sounds about right, wouldn't you think?

Wrong.

Maybe I'm the only one who doesn't know this, but the real reason has everything to do with the second law of thermodynamics, which states that energy goes from high to low.

Or, in other words, your house doesn't get cold because you "let the cold air in." It gets cold because heat leaves it whenever it has the opportunity to do so.

The homes in this picture were primarily built in the 1940s and weren't insulated very well. Therefore, the parts of the roofs in this picture without any snow are over small attic bedrooms with poor insulation, and the heat escapes and melts the snow. The parts of the roofs that do have snow are over unused and unheated portions of the upstairs, maybe even storage nooks or closets.

Now I'll never look at snowcovered roofs in the same way again. I'm glad I know the real reason for the phenomenon, although there is a part of me that still wants to believe it has a little something to do with the angle of the sun.

He remembered!

As if Matt hadn't already done enough for our first anniversary, on Sunday morning, he walked in from a run with a newspaper in hand.

"Look what I found!" he said. "The New York Times!"

I said something to the effect of oh that's great, thinking maybe there was some mixup, or perhaps some promotion was going on.

But he kept standing there, paper in hand and a big smile on his face. And then I realized that he had found it on our doorstep because he had ordered it! He had gotten us a subscription to the Sunday Times for our anniversary!

Now this scored big points with me for a few reasons. First, my dad subscribes to numerous newspapers for work, and since he works at home, I always had about five or more newspapers to choose from on a Sunday morning. So the fact that I now have even one, and one of my favorites, is a wonderful treat.

Second, I work in public relations and daily am reminded that traditional media is dying. So I feel gratified that we're doing our part to keep it alive.

But finally, and perhaps most importantly, it delighted me that Matt remembered that the traditional first anniversary gift is paper. I told him about this after one of our friends bought his wife a counting book for their first anniversary, "because the first gift is paper!" our friend said.

It seemed so sweet and appropriate and I think I told Matt once or twice, ok maybe three times, about this tradition.

And to my delight, he remembered!

I suppose at some point I need to fill him in on next year's cotton requirement ... but for now I'll enjoy my paper.

A Berkley surprise

I'm a sucker for those free, weekly community newspapers that come in the mail. You know the kind, the ones with fourteen pages of ads and four pages of news about the high school basketball team, the parks & recreation's summer art camp, and the police beat. Ours is called "Woodward Talk."

Well, from now on I will always read the Woodward Talk because on Friday, while I was eating my cereal, I noticed an announcement in the paper that Greg Mortenson, author of the New York Times bestseller "Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace, One School at a Time," was speaking at Berkley High School, which is three blocks from our house.

Now you have to understand Berkley and the surrounding area to understand my shock. Not that there isn't an appreciative audience for Greg here. It's just that there are far more literary, "lecturey," peace-promoting types in nearby towns. Towns like Ann Arbor. The last big event in Berkley was probably the Berkley/Ferndale football game.

So this was major.

Plus, I had read the book this fall with my book club and completely loved it. I won't go into great detail about it, but to summarize, it's about how an ordinary man made a promise to a village in Pakistan to build them a school, and how this one school has now turned into 78 schools, and how education, especially the education of women, is furthering peace and thwarting terrorism.

So today Matt and I went to hear Greg speak. It was standing room only, so perhaps there's more of an audience for him here than I realized, and as expected, he was inspiring.

After the talk, Matt and I went across the street for lunch. As we munched on our fries, Matt said, "So what did his talk make you want to do?"

I thought about it for a bit, and while I really wanted to say it made me want to be with the poor, I can't say that was my first instinct. It did make me want to have more faith in the impossible and believe God for more. It did tap that special place in my heart for reading, reminding me of how urgent my desire was to learn to read when I was young, and how tragic it is that some people never get that gift.

So I mentioned those things, but then, pessimist that I can be, I started to think about the all ordinary people who make promises to build schools, clothe the poor, heal the sick ... and don't meet their goal. I mean, not everyone succeeds or accomplishes the impossible, right? You never read books about those people!

Matt just shook his head and admonished me lightly for my pessimism.

So in the spirit of optimism, I'll end on an upbeat note. In 2000, at the height of the Taliban, there were 800,000 kids in school. Today, there are 7 million, 2 million of which are female.

We're nowhere close to spring

However, daffodils help. I remember my high school English teacher telling us how daffodils signify hope, since they are the first flowers of spring.

Well, I know spring is definitely NOT just around the corner here, as it was 6 degrees when I woke up this morning and never make it past the 20's.

But I saw these daffodils at Trader Joe's on Monday and I don't even think they cost more than $2.00. So I treated myself. Even though I had just returned from South Carolina and didn't really need one more treat, I sort of did, because our furnace had shut off while we were gone. So we walked into a, shall I say chilly, house when we returned, which took a solid six hours to reheat.

So I think I deserved the treat.

And if the weather stays this cold, well, I think I might keep buying them!

Charleston pictures

As I mentioned, these aren't the greatest, but I thought I'd post a few. Seems like we never had the motivation to take a picture when the lighting was just right, the sky was blue and we were standing in front of a gracious Southern mansion flanked by palm trees and magnolias. But when it was foggy and rainy, well, that's when we wanted to take pictures!

(Also, for anyone who tried clicking on the links to yesterday's post, my apologies! They are fixed now.)


This bakeshop was absolutely something out of a movie ... sinful chocolate brownies, pink cupcakes, almond tarts, butterscotch cookies ...

The one "blue sky" photo we snapped.

The entryway to our loft condo on King St.


My dream kitchen that I never cooked in because we were always eating out!

Not quite as pretty in the fog, but you get the idea.
Our running clothes aired out nicely up there.


Matt liked this tree by the College of Charleston.

Thawed out

Well, as I was falling to sleep on Thursday night, I was beginning to believe we were headed to Portland, Ore. Not for any particular reason, other than that I couldn't think of any other place in the country that might be experiencing a high of 50 degrees, and I was forcing myself to think out of the box, since Matt said I would NEVER figure out where we were headed.

When we jumped in the car on Friday morning, though, we began heading in exactly the opposite direction of the airport. So that eliminated Oregon. Matt pulled over at the Donut Cutter up the street from our house, because "we need snacks for the trip." How could I protest? I'll have a honey-dipped chocolate donut, please.

As we continued on our way, Matt asked me to pull out the U.S. atlas, as apparently he needed help navigating. His home state? That sounds suspicious. Then he said "What's that piece of paper," which lay on top of the state of South Carolina. Well, it happened to be my boarding pass for a flight to Charleston, SC.

Interestingly, over the past few weeks, Matt had listened to me moan over these photos of Charleston. I tried to not want to go, tried to be content with all the wonderful trips and things I have gotten to do this year, but that didn't get me very far. So I just tried to forget about what I had seen. After all, I had been to Charleston when I was young. I didn't need to go again, right?

Wrong! It was most certainly where we needed to go. Despite the fact that Charleston was experiencing record cold temperatures, we turned on the optimism switch and declared that we were quite fortunate to be skipping out on record cold temperatures in metro Detroit, where the weekend low was -15 degrees.

Plus, record cold temperatures in Charleston affords visitors like us plenty of time to walk a little, eat, eat, run, eat, eat, drive a little, eat, eat, run ... eat. That basically how the weekend played out. Oh, and we shopped.

Matt's coworkers told him he was setting the bar high when he planned a first anniversary trip to one of America's most romantic cities. They're right. But is that really such a bad thing?

(We didn't get too many good pictures, but I'll try posting a few more this week.)

From zero to 50

This is what I woke up to: 0.9 degrees. And that wasn't the worst of it. A few moments later it was 0.7, then 0.3. Finally, I had to look away, lest it get any worse!

But there is better news at hand. Tomorrow Matt is taking me on a surprise anniversary trip. All I know is the following - we are leaving at 7:00 a.m., we will be gone three nights, the high will be 50 degrees, the low 20 (that sounds absolutely balmy at this point), and I am to bring my computer and sunglasses, and mainly casual clothes.

That's all I know! I've played the guessing game to no avail. I'm not getting much information out of him. However, a 50 degree increase sounds like a LOT right about now, so I have a feeling I'll be a happy clam no matter where we end up.