We are getting 14-1/2 hours of sunlight a day right now.  That’s a lot, isn’t it.  Sure it’s nothing compared to what June/July will be, but compared to the five hours we got in December, this is massive.  The books say the sun came up today at 6:50am and will set at 9:13pm, but the daylight comes early and leaves late.  To emphasize that, while fighting off a nasty cold I picked up over the weekend, Monday became the first time this year that I woke up and fell asleep when it was light out.

The real bonus of this daylight is that it’s making me aware more and more how much I love my house – this is also the genesis of my frustration on my post earlier this week about snow covering the deck furniture.  On first blush, the location may not be too welcoming – especially if you look at it like a realtor.  It’s just four houses from a highway (so it can get loud), its burried amongst other houses with just regular hight fences (so it’s not exactly private), and it’s trees are more on the edges of the property (not filling up the spaces).  To be honest, I thought about those things too as I started living here, but that was when it was dark nearly the whole time I was in the house. 

This morning, as I was stepping out of the shower, I spotted through my south facing window a glimpse of a mountain that way.  There above the trees and houses was the Kenai Peninsula in a location you can’t even drive to get to.  The sun hadn’t shown itself to the Anchorage bowl yet, but it splashed itself across the snow covered summits.  At that hour, the red of the sunrise and the angle it deflects onto created accents at each of the normally nondescript ridges.  What is typically a wash of white was shadows and brightness of red, orange, and greys.  It looked into the window like a natual peeper checking out what goes on inside this house; but in a way it was like the opposite — calling me to look out at it, to watch it come to life.  Right out my own bedroom window.

Now the sun is up in the evenings, it shines towards the east lighting up the snow covered Chugach Mountians.  That’s not something I know from heading to a high point and looking out over the foothills … I see it every evening when I walk out to the back deck.  Sure there are some houses and trees betwen here and there, but its there in view and dominant on my horizon … just out my back door.  The clouds rolling in off the inlet, they cross over the my southern and eastern sky, fresh and clear.  Maybe my opinion of it will change as the trees fill up and the neighbors break in that hot tub across the way, but I can see now that this is going to be something special.

Now if the darn snow would stop falling.