Minnesota. It's really not Siberia.

Many of you know that I'm not a Minnesota native.
In fact, when Husband broke it to me told me that he'd gotten a job offer here - 14 looonng years ago - I cried. And cried. And cried. (And I believe the words, "...if I had to list all 50 states in order of where I'd want to live, Minnesota would be in like the bottom 5" or something along those lines came out of my mouth...between sobs).
All I knew of Minnesota was that when I watched football all the fans were hidden under layers and layers of puffy parkas and those burgler ski-masks that only have holes for eyes and mouth, and a foot or two of snow.

I obviously didn't know my football/football stadiums as well as I thought I did.
I was thinking of Green Bay (which I now think would fall waay below Minneapolis as a
desired place of mine to live.  Go Vikings).

Anyway, for a girl from Arizona, Minnesota might as well have been Siberia.

Flash forward 14 years.

I'm still surviving (and during the months of December, January, February and March, just barely), but I've learned to appreciate and embrace the things this state has to offer (except Al Franken and the damn mosquitoes).

So I've put together a short list of why Minnesota isn't as bad as a lot of people in cool states like California  and Colorado and Connecticut might think.  But if you want to read it I'm sending you over to Jackie's blog, Perched where I'm filling in today while she's getting some much needed R&R. She's my blogging buddy in Brooklyn, who I almost got to meet in June, but the stars were not aligned because Colin Powell messed them all up (long story.  Sounds much better with this air of mystery).

So go check out her cute blog....and find out where in Minnesota you can get a photo like this -

I'm not positive, but I think she might have babysat for us back in the late '90s.

{In case you missed it, click these words to be magically transformed to Jackie's blog.}