Winter is Real (who knew?)

So its April and I am finally getting around to posting my Freeze Yer Buns wrap up. In my defense, this winter has been long. So very, very long. I can count on one hand the number of times 2010 has seen 80 degree weather, and let me tell you folks, here in Texas, that's just not normal. I'm not sure if this winter has been the coldest on record, but it certainly has been the longest. It got colder, sooner than it ever has before with a laughable blizzard in early December, and this morning, APRIL 9, it was 45 degrees! WTF!?! I know, you Northerners are rolling your eyes. You readers in Siberia are staring at mountains of snow and laughing at me. I get it. But I bought socks this year! I bought socks for the first time in over five years because for the first time I was actually having to wear them for anti-frostbite purposes.

For all my whining I have to confess that I'm glad I have lived through a winter. Honestly, as a child I would look chart that pictured all of the seasons, Spring rains, Summer sunshine, autumn brown and red leaves and then this mythical thing called Winter and snow. Winter was always blue and the story books talked of children in snow boots, scarves, hats and mittens. I never quite understood what all of that was about. Winter was cold, but it was not THAT cold and honestly snow in the quantities of 40 foot snow drifts, I was sure, were just tall tales. If I was beginning to identify with Garrison Keillor as he opines about harsh Minnesota when I turned my thermostat down last winter, I can now say that now I at least fully sympathise and I'm quite sure that I never want to completely understand.

There is something that happens to your soul with you are no longer incubated in an temperature controlled environment. Its hard to do much when you are freezing. With a sweatshirt, socks and rolled up in a warm blanket, its hard to be enthusiastic about much of anything aside from cooking in front of the warm stove. Still, I feel as though all of that hardship means that I rightfully earned Spring. Last Sunday evening I sat at the kitchen table with Alex, windows open, to let in the cool fresh air and sounds of the city. It would be more romantic to say we were serenaded by the sound of crickets as we played a game of cheese, but the truth is we listened to freeway traffic and police sirens as we played Care Bear checkers. Either way it was liberating to be barefoot in shorts and listen to Alex laugh and say, "my lips hurt from smiling."