1. You can open the windows and let fresh air flow through the house.
2. No more snow shoveling.
3. Retailers are looking for shoppers to peel back the covers and venture out of doors. After all that time snowed in, we’re eager to spend money.
4. More hours of daylight.
5. The price of gas can’t get much higher than $3.15. Can it?
6. Dairy Queen opens.
7. Weather conditions make it possible to work on home repairs caused by the ice storm and the 214 snow falls that followed.
8. Chocolate bunnies.
9. You can wear white shoes now. If that’s your thing.
10. The Fed lowered the interest rate and helped rescue Bear Stearns, an investment bank 99 percent of Americans had never heard of two weeks ago.
11. If we’re not all shut up in one room together, we won’t be breathing cold and flu germs.
12. Tulips and daffodils.
13. It doesn’t take 15 minutes and eight layers to get dressed to take the dog for a walk.
14. Crews will be able to get out on the road and fix car-eating potholes.
15. Unemployment at 4.9 percent is still below the state average. In fact, more people were working in January than were the previous month.
16. A five-foot tall business editor who is afraid of the ball got invited to be part of the News-Press celebrity basketball team.
17. It’s not cold.
18. With the better weather and longer days, people have more opportunity to get out and look at homes for sale. They’ll be buying more property and the housing sector will turn around.
19. The government is getting ready to print checks to give each personal economy a stimulus.
20. The furnace is running less, cutting down on the natural gas bill.
21. A day closer to a (potential) Panera Bread opening.
22. The electricity is still on.
23. Car washes are open and ready to help remove four months of road salt from your vehicle.
24. The snow has melted and you can find all those things accidently dropped in the yard the past few months.
25. You can plant a garden to try to take a bite out of high food prices.
26. New spring clothes and sandals.
27. Office camaraderie is getting a big boost from coworkers taking on each others’ brackets in the NCAA basketball tournament.
28. There’s hope for everything. Even tree limbs piled on the curb are starting to bud.
29. Jesus is alive and that changes everything. Everything.
Halleluia for Jesus – and Panera bread!