Wrapped in Winter

I find it difficult sometimes to enjoy winter although I know I should just give up my stubborn dislike of the frosty temperatures and try to find some good in it. I don’t know about you, but I kind of get cranky when there’s a stiff breeze blowing up my parka and I have icicles hanging out of my nose. My eyelashes tend to get frozen together and my hair looks stringy from the hairspray that globs together when partially wet, yuk!

Someone should invent hairspray that’s winterized. I was just thinking about how guys make sure all the things they need in the winter work well, like car batteries, engine oil and windshield washer fluid. Think of car batteries for example, all of the TV commercials I’ve ever seen tout those things as being good for up to –40-degree weather…they’ll get you where you need to go. Well, what about us women who have lots, and I mean lots of places to go? Who’ll take care of things like our hair care needs and formulate us a hairspray that’ll be as good for –40 as we desperately need it to be? How about make-up that doesn’t smear when the cold wind blows and our eyes water?

I do have moments that I like winter…but only under certain conditions. It might be picky, but I like to be in my house wrapped up in a warm blanket, reading a can’t-put-it-down-for-a-second type of book. The steam from a mug of hot chocolate is always nice, swirling up and around me and enveloping me with warmth. If I can tear my eyes away from my book for a few seconds to look outside I do appreciate the beauty of the softly falling snow. The twinkling reflections of light that dance and sparkle make me feel happy and carefree like I felt when I was a child…yes, I do enjoy it fully through my living room window.

I guess my main hang-up with winter is having to drive through all conceivable types of road conditions. I tend to panic when I have to pick my way down an unplowed road with no middle line in sight, and shoulders that blend into the fields. On those mornings I feel like I have every right to be dead center of the road and kind of get perturbed if someone tries to pass me because I’m barely managing as it is. You know how it is, you’re straddling the center of the road, see someone coming and fish-tail as you try to pull over only to be totally engulfed in the snow blowing behind the other vehicle, enough so that when it clears you realize you’re actually on the wrong side of the road…or is that just me? Oops.

I will probably start enjoying winter about the time that I quit my day job and decide to become a snow-bird~ah, I can dream can’t I??