While that may sound silly, the sun has been in a deep solar minimum. The sun typically goes through an 11 year cycle of sunspot activity, but this past minimum has been unusally long and had the fewest sunspots recorded in nearly 100 years. Now it's starting to show activity again, and those with solar telescopes or solar filters can see the activity ramping up. Here's an article about it, along with a link for safe observing of the sun.

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/obser.../88604077.html