WOW! Looks great! I've always had more of a preference for longer hair, but when a short cut is done well, as yours was, I like them, too. :-)

I forgot the noises a whole lakeful of ice can make

Several years ago I was on my sister's fish farm in southern Indiana with my dad and brother-in-law, in the winter for the first time. We walked way out onto one of the frozen ponds and I kept hearing these weird sqeaking, pinging, whistling noises that I learned were being made by the ice. Eerie.