Saturday, January 9, 2010

Is it spring yet?

I don't know about you, but I'm totally SICK OF WINTER--and it's only January 9th. Officially, we've had winter for almost three weeks. Those weeks of cold, snowy weather that happened before the Solstice were apparently faux winter.

The forecast has been bleak: snow, snow, and more snow. But there are benefits to winter, and believe me, I had to look high and low to find them.

Natural gas flame First off, I'm staying home more and saving lots of money on gasoline for the car. Of course, the furnace seems to be on 24/7, so we're making up for it by using a tremendous amount of natural gas to keep this place almost warm, so we'll probably be in the red for that.

Porch freezer1 I have a new giant freezer. It's called my porch. We ran out of space to put the Christmas goodies about mid-December. Not a problem. We just put them on the porch. The temp hasn't risen above 30 out there in at least three weeks, so the cookies are still frozen, as is the big bag of ice. All the craft beers hubby received for Christmas are nice and frosty, and I froze a big vat of turkey soup, which I first cooled outside, and then put in individual containers to freeze, so I wouldn't have to take up a third of my fridge/freezer to store it.

No skiing Oh dear. That's only two good things. I'm not into winter sports, like skiing, sledding, tobogganing, skating, or snowmobiling, and even if I'm not cold, seeing all that snow outside makes me feel like I should be either hibernating, or eating or drinking something fattening to make sure I survive this long, cold, lonely winter.

There must be other good things about winter. Can you think of any?