Winter Fatigue

By Trish Milburn

Anyone who knows me knows that winter is, by far, my least favorite season. I get cold easily, I hate gray days, and I've had some bad experiences traveling in wintry weather (like doing unintentional 360s down the highway until I ended up in a ditch). Even a normal winter here in the South has me layering up in fleece and watching for the earliest sign of spring -- my daffodils popping out of the ground. Of course, lately my daffodils, which popped up a few weeks ago, have been shivering. It's been a cold, gray winter with more snowfalls than we typically have. In fact, we have another covering the ground this morning, one that came overnight. There's a bit of iciness to it because it crunches on our street when people drive by. It's been so cold (down to single digits at some points) that I nearly had a stroke when I saw my last natural gas bill.

But this year, I don't think I'm the only one experiencing winter fatigue. People on the East Coast of the U.S. have been buried by one giant snowstorm after another. Residents of Texas and the Deep South even got a taste of winter -- a foot of snow in Dallas and snowfalls in atypical states such as Louisiana and Mississippi. I was supposed to go to Ohio today for a romance program at a library, but I just found out that it's been moved to March because of bad weather.

At times like this, I try to look for consolations and things to look forward to in order to get through the winter blues. For instance, I tell myself that it can snow and be cold now because I have to be inside doing revisions and reading RITA entries anyway. Maybe by the time I turn them in, the weather will have improved enough that I can start walking outside again instead of on the treadmill.

I think about where I'll be a month from today -- Disney World! I LOVE Disney World, and it'll be a nice treat in between two deadlines and a board meeting. And at the end of next month, I'll get to enjoy a visit with my sister and nieces when they fly in for a week. Yes, my entire March is full to the brim, but there's a lot to enjoy in there. And hopefully, it won't be cold and there won't be a snowflake in sight and the daffodils will be in full bloom.

So, how has winter been where you are? Are you looking forward to spring? What do you do to get yourself through winter? Or are you a winter lover? And for our friends in the southern hemisphere, what is the weather like where you are now? It's odd for me to think that Christmas and Valentine's Day fall during your summer.

Be Vewy, Vewy, Quiet....I'm Hunting Gwoundhog!

by Joan Kayse

I’m ready for spring. I want crocus and tulips and forsythias blooming. I want blue skies and Mama robins building nests. I want green grass and budding trees and soft breezes.

So Mr. Groundhog...you’re toast!

I know. I know, I know, I know my winter experience has not been of the apocalyptic proportions as Jeanne and Christie and many of our BB’s along the Atlantic seaboard. Here in my part of Kentucky we’ve had intermittent snowfalls. Yesterday’s was a measly 7 inches. On the now popular DC scale that’s a dusting. But the blankety blank stuff won’t stay shoveled! I woke to 2-foot drifts blocking my drive. (Note: There is no such thing as enterprising teens wanting to make some bucks...even the lure of my chocolate chip cookies couldn’t bring them away from their warm, snug Wii consoles.)

And now our weather guy is saying Sunday we’ll get at LEAST that much more.

I’m done.

Was it really only 11 days ago that our friend Punxatawny Phil saw his shadow? Personally, I think it’s a con as any groundhog thrust up into the glare of camera lights is GOING to see his shadow. He didn’t scurry back into his hole because of an impending six more weeks of winter! He had a flashback to those headlights on Route 86 that took his less well known cousin, Pete the Possum, out a few years back.

Now I wouldn’t really hurt anything furry and cute. After all, Marmota Monax is in the same family as squirrels (rabid squirrel!) and I like them ok. But I figure if we hunt him down and force him to see the error of his ways maybe spring will come next week!

So Phil...here’s the deal:

Snow hides the robins. We can’t see them and take comfort in knowing spring will not forget us.

Cold weather makes skin dry and rough and, well...you just don’t want to be in the Lair with scratchy Banditas. Sven does not have enough lotion.

No one can see my pedicure in boots up to my knees.

Snow bleaches everything out...until the traffic comes and then it turns into a black/gray glob that takes until July to melt. And don’t get me started on yellow snow....

Gray sky is depressing. Throw a little sun our way once in awhile. Oh, but wait. Let me put on these shades because sun plus miles of white snow = blindness.

So my question for you is, what do you have to say to Phil? What signals the start of spring for you? Whose your favorite Looney Tunes character and last, but not least, who wants to take in an oversized rodent until April?

Snow, Glorious Snowwww......

by Jeanne Adams

Okay, apologies to Charles Dickens and the rip off of "Food, Glorious Food" from the musical Oliver, but it fits for snow so well and the tune is SO catchy! Grins.

I've been longing for a good whalloping snow for a while now. I do believe that I have desired a blizzard right into existance, so I'm thinking I need to apologize to the other 2-million-plus residents of the DC Metro area for this weekend's storm. (I'm thinking I had help though, since 900,000+ school kids are rockin' this snow storm too)

Either way, I'll say "Sorry!" (But I'm not sure I'll really MEAN it....)

You see, we've had snow this winter already, so I was already grinning and happy with the Snow Gods. We've had more this year than we've had in a decade, which has pleased me no end. I'm a snow lover. It makes me smile, it makes me happy, and I get a lot of exercise out there shoveling, making snow creatures, snow angels, and snow forts. The snowball wars...well, they're even more fun.

Some people are tropical people. They love the beach. They love the heat, they love the day they can actually don shorts without freezing their patooties off; they think summer is da bomb.

Then there are the odd ones, like me, who just adore autumn and winter. I look forward to the day it's cool enough to wear a turtleneck, sweatshirt and jeans. I mourn when it gets too hot to wear them. I love football. I think crisp autumn days and snow filled nights are a glory beyond words.

In the last decade, we've had nice fall weather, and to my disgust in the dead of winter we've had 60 degree days. Total bummer for us snow lovers. Since I've managed to have two kids and get published in the last ten years, I've not had much opportunity to leave all-too-warm-DC to go skiing. Another total bummer. Sigh. On the bright side, my kids are finally old enough that we're going to get to go do the ski thing next year. Whooooppeeeee!

Imagine my delight, then, when this year, we got SNOWWWW! In January, we got enough to go sledding on the neighbor's hill for three days straight. Everyone in the neighborhood gathered for an impromptu potluck. Then someone planned another one for the next night and spent the day making a snow track for the kids. What a riot!

Then it all melted. Bummer. But hey, I was thrilled. We'd FINALLY gotten some snow! I resigned myself to that snow being the great "hurrah" for the winter.

No to knock it, we made some wonderful memories. The kids talked for at least two more weeks about getting together, hanging out with the neighborhood, and playing in the snow.

Then, about 10 days ago, they started talking about "A Storm."

The closer it got, the more they refused to say how much snow we would get.

A sure sign this could be a whopper of a storm.

And it was. It measures 30" in some places in my yard. Neigboring counties in Maryland and Virginia got 43" of snow.

Guess what?

It's supposed to snow again tomorrow night. Yipeeeeeeee!

As you can tell, I'm gleeful. My husband? Not so much. You see, he's one of those shorts-loving-give-me-the-beach kinds. We're so compatible in other ways, that we tolerate this gaping rift in our enjoyment of the seasons.

He's also not enjoying this as much as I am because he's a CFO. This is first quarter - AKA Panic Time for anyone with fiduciary responsibility in an organization.

The night of the storm, it was glorious. Big fat flakes, alternating with granular, hard pelting snow that piled up and up and up. It was so silent too. No cars, no horns, no traffic or sound, just white silence. Peaceful, and yet eerie in some ways too.

Yesterday and today, we're all playing in it. One of the good things about this snow business is that, unlike summer's intermnible heat, it's ephemeral. Even today, some melted. Not much, but it dropped of the branches in great lumps, freeing the trees from their pendulous burdens. The sky was bright, bright blue, which meant everyone was out assessing the "damage."

We have company because one of our friends has no power so she and her daughter were guests of Chez Adams last night and probably tonight too. We watched the SUPER BOWL!!! complete with Who Dat! and The Who. Then Julie and Julia as a nightcap. Fab movie but after all the shoveling we were all drooping with fatigue from all the fun exercise.

This exercise element is one of the great things about winter. If I need to lose weight, I wait till winter. So much more pleasant, you see to get lots of exercise - akin to running a marathon yesterday! - without sweating like the proverbial pig.

Yep. Now you know. The truth is out. It's why I love winter. I hate to sweat. Ugh.

So, I say, bring on the SNOW!!!!

What's your favorite snow sport? Skiing? Sledding? Tobagganing? Sitting inside looking out?

What's your favorite summer sport? Our Aussie pals are in the depths of a heat wave, complete with (double ugh!) high humidity. Like to swim? Boat? Play baseball, Suz? Grins.

If you were snowed in with your hunk-o-man for four days would you go shovel or do other things? Grins. Now, that's kind of a no-brainer, isn't it?

What's the record snowfall for your area?

Are you ready for the Winter Olympics!!??

Winter Wonderland

by Nancy

We had a gray Christmas, not a white one, with rain most of the day yesterday. Not quite the ambiance we've been trained to expect. As the dh said, "No one wrote a song dreaming of a wet Christmas." And Charles Dickens didn't write about rain in A Christmas Carol. We would've liked just a bit of the white stuff--a few flurries, perhaps, though the boy believes "snow when [he's] out of school is wasted snow."

I imagine those of you looking at anything from multiple inches to a couple of feet of snow may wonder if I know what I'm saying, especially if the snow canceled your travel plans. And I do understand that snow presents anything from an inconvenience to a confounded nuisance to a danger. Yet snow has always had a mystique here in the central Carolinas, probably because we have it so seldom. I've had snow on the brain lately, in part because of my new fixation with the Times of London website, which featured snow so heavily this past week (including the Dickens article in the link above), and because of the nasty storm crippling the central US this week. However, I actually got the idea for this blog while watching the dh's favorite holiday movie, A Christmas Story, yesterday afternoon.

At the end of the movie, the parents sit in the darkened living room with light coming only from the tree lights and from streetlights shining through falling snow outside. And they comment on the beauty of the scene. It struck me then, obvious though this may have been to others, that it isn't really the snow that's beautiful, at least not for me. It's what light does to snow and vice-versa.

Light shining through or reflecting off snow gives it a fairyland sheen. The snow covers the bumps and rough spots of the ground underneath, diffusing the light so everything glistens as though it had a magical coating. The shadows become more obvious than they would be on grass, and there's an aura of magic about the whole thing. At least for those of us who don't live with in week in and week out. I suspect this is all a matter of perspective, but I did enjoy looking at photos of snowy scenes from around the world.


Ice is dangerous--ask anyone. We've had ice storms here that brought down limbs on power lines and roofs and caused terrible hardships. Black ice caused a horrible bus crash in Cornwall last week. Yet seeing the sun shine through that ice coating a limb gives it a silvery, ethereal beauty made all the stronger because it's fleeting. That very sunlight that creates the beauty will soon destroy it.

Snow used to be a "get out of school free" card. Around here, we know we don't understand how to drive in snow, so most of us try not to. Yet there are always people who have to. For them, I'm sure, the snow is not so much a beauty as a nuisance. When I had to drive to work on snow-over-ice, I didn't love it so much. Still, I fondly remember sledding down a slick street with my friends in high school. No one else was out, and I worked up my courage by starting halfway down the hill and then going progressively higher. Because my companions were lifelong friends, nobody gave me any grief about being afraid of speed.

What about you? Is snow a blessing or a bane to you? Or both?

In the spirit of Boxing Day, I'm boxing up and sending to one commenter a duplicate soundtrack of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Black Pearl I somehow acquired. It's still in the packaging, but I don't have the receipt, so it's offered unused but "as is." I also have a signed copy of Warrior's Lady donated by Gerri Russell and a copy (not signed) of Don't Bargain with the Devil donated by Sabrina Jeffries.

This is my last blog post of 2009, so Happy Boxing Day and best wishes for a healthy, happy 2010!

Over the River and Through the Wood ...

To Grandmother’s house we go,
The horse knows the way

To carry the sleigh,

Through the white and drifted snow.

Oh!

Everyone's singing along, right? Right! We all know this song!

But seriously, who in the world goes to their grandmother's house in a horse-drawn sleigh?

When my brothers and I were young and first heard the "Over the River" song, we wondered why the words didn’t mention the part where we drove through that long, dark tunnel under the airport. So we made up our own lyrics.

Hop on the freeway

And drive through the tunnel

To grandmother's house we go,

Dad knows the way

In our Chevrolet,

And into the city we go.

Oh!

Yes, that's more like it!

And snow? We didn't know anyone who drove through snow. No comprende! We grew up in Southern California, near the beach. I didn’t see snow until I was … well, much older.

My dear husband, who grew up in Buffalo, New York, still teases me about the first time I saw snow falling. It was my first trip to his hometown and looking out the airplane window, I saw all this sparkly, shiny, colorful fairy dust flying in the air. It was beautiful! I asked him what it was, and he laughed and said, "That's snow." ("You idiot." No, he didn't add that part, but believe me, it was clearly implied in his tone.) I insisted that what we were looking at couldn't be snow. "No, it's too sparkly. It looks like fairy dust to me," I said.

You'll all be happy to know that I successfully repressed the memory of his response.

So ... Where are you going for the holiday? How are you getting there? Will there be snow?

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!!