Just gonna warn you, I’m a hot happy mess today.

• Hot as in it’s actually hot here. Needs-air-conditioning type weather. This is a strange and wonderful feeling that I have missed for the last 364 days and I am fully prepared to enjoy every hot Minnesota second of it.
• Happy as in pep in my step cause it’s a sunny Monday and summer is rocking my world. This weekend was all about outdoor time and life is good and imma bouta celebrate the sun with RAW CHOCOLATE SNACK BARS. Can’t even hold me down. It might get obnoxious.
• Mess as in covered with chocolate sauce and raw oat-pecan-date crumble from these bars. Literal chocolate sauce explosion on my face. Which I guess is fitting, since it just brings us back to happy?

Every time it’s summer here in Minnesota and I start to come alive a little bit (a lot) after many months of, to put it lightly, completely depressing weather, I ask myself: WHY DO I LIVE HERE.

There are places all around the world that have Minnesota-summer-like weather every single day and hour and minute of the year. What is the deal with our obsession with Minnesota. Why are we even here? But then every time I think about things like a non-white Christmas, my heart feels sad. And also… um… no, that’s probably it. I officially live here solely for white Christmases.