The Littlest Winter
So it was 70 degrees outside yesterday, guys. I can hear birds singing outside my window and I’m seriously thinking about cranking them open, as much as I can for that sweet spring smell I’m sure is out there. I realize winter isn’t officially over until the 21st, but really, it feels like winter is over. Not that winter actually got started. I know they said that this year would be a super mild winter, but I didn’t actually believe them. That’s what comes of having several super harsh winters in a row I guess.
Last year it seemed like every weekend was a snow storm. Which was most inconvenient as that’s when we tend to travel. Church was cancelled a couple times, or nearly empty because people couldn’t get there. We also had some heating issues, but that’s a different story. We took the turnpike a lot because we couldn’t trust other roads to be consistently cleared. It was a pretty scary year to be driving an hour to see my mom. The winter before that was freezing cold. I walked to class wearing a three layers of pants and two coats. I remember pulling my sweat pants over my jeans to go to work and taking them off in the coat room. I actually asked for a ride to the theater from other girls living in the apartments. I had pneumonia over Christmas break, it was that cold! I don’t actually know if cold causes pneumonia, but I had it and it was cold, so there you go.
I can’t say I remember the winters before that super well, with the exception of 2010 when there was that giant snow storm that dumped like 2 feet of snow on us. Logan was a freshmen at the time and home for his birthday weekend. They had to dig out the van to get him back in time for classes. Up at my house the whole family had to go out to clear a path for my dad to get to work. They have a long and sloping driveway, not as bad as some, but pretty intense when you have to shovel 2 feet of snow out of the way enough to get a truck out. Plus clearing off all the cars. Thankfully we only had two out at the time, my dad’s truck, of course, and my brothers red car. I remember starting out in full snow gear and dropping items as I went. A coat here, a scarf there, maybe even my sweatshirt, it got warm fast doing all that shoveling. There was a trail of discarded clothing following me down the hill. I was home from school for three days that week because it took them that long to dig everything else out.
Compared to those winters, this winter was just a little baby winter. Sure, we did have that one giant snow storm, and I guess it got us pretty good over here in Western PA, but not nearly as bad as other places. Maybe winter just doesn’t seem so bad now that I don’t have anything to be cancelled due to weather. Logan still goes to work, regardless of the snow, and I sit here and write things where it’s safe. School cancellations don’t effect us and there’s nothing to be delayed. Anyway, this winter seems to have been a clip show of the previous winters. We got that one giant snow storm, and then it warmed up again and everything melted and that was that. And then the temperature dropped to like 0 degrees with windchill, just in time for us to move, but only for like a week and then it came back up and has been just dandy ever since. One snow snap, one cold snap and it seems to be over.
Don’t worry, I’m not going to say that it is. I’ve lived twenty-four years in Western PA and I know that winter can strike at any moment, even up to the beginning of April. But it’s so nice out right now, and has been all week that it’s hard to imagine winter coming back. It could, of course, because it’s sneaky, but right now I feel like enjoying the springishness of it all. If I can find the other blankets I might go out and sit in the yard for a while to read. We don’t have any lawn type furniture yet. We’ll get there eventually. But for now I will be content with a blanket and perhaps a bit of dry ground. Perhaps not. We’ll see. My one lament is that we didn’t get the fireplace cleaned in time for a cozy fire on a cold winters night. Ah well. Have a lovely spring-ish day, my friends.
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