Winter for Dummies

Living in Kansas for the past 28 years I’ve seen quite a few winters.  We’ve had snowy winters and sunny winters.  Very freezing cold winters and pretty mild winters.  So I feel like I’m sort of an expert on winter.  I’m sure Fox News and/or CNN would love me to be an expert on one of their many worthless shows!  So here are my pros and cons to winters in Kansas…

 

Pros:

·         I love winter clothes.  Boots, leggings, chunky sweaters.  All of it!  I love it, I love it, I love it!

·         Snow days rock as a kid!  Unfortunately…see con for what we deal with as an adult.

·         Snow is so pretty!  And I’m pretty sure the saying is true that every snowflake is unique! Again though…see con for what snow turns into.

·         I love snuggly days when you can spend inside with your loved ones (or yourself!) drinking some hot cocoa, watching a movie and sitting in front of the fire place.  A little piece of heaven. My next house WILL have a fireplace.

·         It’s fun to watch your kids play in the snow.  And as a kid it is super awesome to play in it.  I remember so many fun days growing up where I just spent hours outside playing with my friends.  Even into high school we would have snowball fights and ride sleds.  So much fun.

·         Winter here means football playoffs and college basketball.  Two of my favorite times of year sports.  So much competition!

 

Cons:

·         You never know what to wear.  Your day can start out freezing cold (negative degree wind chill) and by the afternoon it is in the mid-50s.  Heavy coat, parka, hat and gloves?  For an adult it’s a little easier but as I’ve learned in the last year with a Kindergartener who goes outside for recess, it is much more difficult.  If they go out in the morning then the heavy coat is a necessity, but come the afternoon recess Leo is a sweaty mess.  Or chooses to not wear his coat.  Either way…lose-lose.

·         Your skin gets so darn dry.  No matter how many humidifiers you have running or how much lotion you slather on, your fingers will be dry and cracked at some point in the winter.  Throw in all the yucky-yucks going around and hand washing hits an all-time high, you could possibly see blood.

·         Your heater will at a very inopportune time stop working.  It never fails.  I’m not saying every year, but at least once every 5 years something will hit it wrong and it will say sayonara.  And you will freeze your fanny off.

·         Snow is not always as pretty as they make it look on tv.  The first 30 minutes of a snowfall is awesome.  Especially if it’s dark and you can see lights hitting it.  But after that it gets brown.  And mucky.  And cars drive all over it and squish it and sometimes make it look black. Not pretty anymore.

·         Snow days are not considered sick days for adults.  So if you have kids in school and they have a snow day you have to take a vacation day.  And sometimes you have to scramble to find someone to watch your kids because you can’t miss a day at work.  Yay.

·         Ice sucks.  Enough said.

 

So there are my lists of pros and cons.  Take from it what you will. After making my list I have decided that I am a fence-sitter when it comes to winter.  I much prefer fall but will take winter to get my fall! Visit Gretchen (http://secondblooming.typepad.com/second-blooming/2013/01/spin-cycle-winter-things-ive-been-thinking-about.html) and see all the other spins about winter as well!