Baby it's cold outside!

I have been having daydreams of spring weather. Not just the thought of being warmer, but that feeling that I know that we have all on that first spring day when it’s warm enough to open your windows and the warm sun is hitting your face for the first in months. You hit all the buttons on the radio until you finally find something you love and you blast it and sing and you feel sixteen years old again. That’s the flash of spring I’m having, pretty much by the hour.

Zero is cold. The car thermometer reading “-6” when you drop off your kindergartner is downright ridiculous. And I have nothing to say about a wind chill of -26, except “BRRRR!” Yesterday, while we were experiencing the aforementioned temperatures, I ventured out to the grocery store; I had no choice. I wasn’t alone though, I saw three moms I knew there, all grasping at their Sunday opportunity of shopping alone. As I packed up my car in the frigid air, my skin actually hurt, my jeans were so cold I didn’t want to move and my eyes burned. All I could think was that I was so glad the kids weren’t with me and not for the usual reasons either!

I talked to a family at a birthday party yesterday that plans to move to Florida, Tampa in fact, near our old stomping grounds. Their house went on the market on January 1st and they have yet to have a showing. But they hate the weather here and plan to get south one way or another. They even mentioned that they thought it would take two years to sell their high end home, but they didn’t care! All the way home I wondered what we were thinking coming up here eight years ago, unknowingly submitting ourselves to the worst winter in 29 years! But I do know what we were thinking. ... a little bit at least.

We were thinking that we wanted to be near the majority of our family when we had kids. We were thinking how, although it may sound appealing right now, there was something lacking when we hung our Christmas lights in cut-offs holding our beers. We were thinking that August in Florida, now hold on to your hats, is just as miserable as February in Chicago. We were thinking that we missed fall and all its autumnal glory. We missed the newness and excitement that comes with spring. And we were thinking that we just belonged up here, again in the Midwest, left with dreams of beaches and seeing dolphins during our daily runs.

Seriously, I really don’t know what we were thinking! God speed spring!