Category Archives: Winter

About January

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Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on Unsplash

[My brain is still thawing out from last week’s weather. So I dug up another throwback for y’all from 20 years ago when there was a drought, ergo – NO SNOW. And quarantine? Yeah, I just didn’t know.]

You sure can tell it’s January. January is a month that starts off with a big bang and quickly fizzles away into nondescript-ness. Its only merit is the holiday that occurs on the first of the month leaving nothing to look forward to. Unless you celebrate Ukrainian Christmas, but it’s too bad for you if it falls in the middle of the week. Arriving to work late (or the day after) with that excuse in hand will get you the same scrutiny from your boss as “my dog ate my homework”. The calendars in my house only herald such events as Classes Resume at the beginning of the month and Australia Day at the end. For the latter, I suppose we could spend the day singing the chorus of Six White Boomers (the chorus is all we know and only two lines of it) and watching all our taped episodes of The Crocodile Hunter.

And then there’s the weather, the hot topic of small talk everywhere. By this time winter has lost all its novelty. The mercury in the thermometer appears badly out of shape, as it can’t seem to bench-press anything above a negative number. And getting the kids ready to get out the door in their multi-layered outfits loses a lot of appeal after the first two hundred times. Plus their lack of memory (first snow pants, then boots) is astonishing. After all, they’ve had two hundred times to practice. And I won’t even mention anything about zippers not built to last more than two hundred zips.

I waffle between whether I think more snow would be a good idea. There are certain advantages to an absence of snow. My sidewalk has been virtually maintenance free since even the least amount of frozen precipitation has Gil out the door to shovel the snow. The novelty of this hasn’t even had a chance to wear off, since there have been so few snow-removal opportunities for him. And pushing a loaded shopping cart back to my van is certainly easier when you’re not working against a day’s snowfall.

On the other hand, since it IS winter, I figure we might as well have some snow to go along with the frost on our windshields and the chill on our noses. Plus sending the kids out to play in the frozen grass just doesn’t hold the same appeal as a big downy blanket to curl up in. (Anyone with a snowmobile is sadly nodding their head in agreement right now.) Not to mention the desperate need for moisture. My eldest son is even recounting the good old days to his younger brothers, which in his memory is the year Grandpa was able to pile up the snow in the yard into a kid-sized mountain with the front-end loader.

And well, what would January be without the flu and the common cold? My kids have managed to space out their illnesses well enough that the ice cream pails only get about a day’s rest between sick sessions. That means we’ve been in quarantine. Although, it might only be three or four days since we’ve been out, it seems like a lot longer. And kids have such an incredible way of masking their sickness until some critical moment. Like when the van is running and you’re getting the kids ready to go out the door (first snow pants, then boots).  That’s usually when someone yells, “I need a pail!” and you set an Olympic record (one which involves speed and hurdles) either getting the pail to the kid or the kid to the toilet, depending on which course of action you chose in that split second.

I suppose in that light, you can’t really call January a boring month. These domestic challenges of getting that zipper to work just one more time and keeping the kids occupied indoors are what keep me going. And anyways, I shouldn’t complain. January IS one of my twelve favorite months!

About Dressing for the Occasion

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It’s nice, but is it warm? [Photo by Vladimir Yelizarov on Unsplash]

I don’t know what the kids are doing these days, but when I was going to school, dressing for winter wasn’t about being warm. It was totally about being cool.

For some reason, the wearing of winter coats, hats and – heaven forbid! – BOOTS was absolute malarkey when I was a teenager. Of course, my mother in her eminent sense, never let me leave the house without looking like I was warm enough to stand at the end of the driveway in freezing weather to wait for the school bus. But that didn’t mean I didn’t doff my toque as soon as the bus came into sight. I mean, who wants to spend a single minute in junior high with hat hair? Not Thirteen-Year-Old Me!

The coolest kids (and some of the cutest – I’m not saying the smartest) managed to look like they weren’t freezing their arses off while still wearing their summer jean jackets and hightop runners, hands shoved down into their jeans pockets like they were auditioning for an S. E. Hinton movie. I don’t think I ever managed to achieved Total Cool Status – I wore a scarf and mitts everyday – but I do remember sneaking out of the house in sneakers, not boots. And winding up with wet socks and cold feet – how dumb is that?

I’m a lot older now and – it goes without saying – MUCH COOLER. Or is it warmer? I start wearing my toque in early fall and my boots with the first snowflake. I have even been known to turn on the seat heater in my car on a chilly day in summer because I am OVER with being cold. I do think dressing for the weather isn’t such a faux pas anymore. Then again, I don’t really know what’s in style anymore. It’s too hard to keep up with the Jones, or the teenagers, or whoever rules the fashion roost.

In anticipation of the winter season, my personal shopper (that would be my husband, Rick) picked out a SUPER WARM, EXTRA LONG new coat for me. I have never had such a warm coat before and apparently being warm means spending a little bit of money – this coat is what they call an “investment purchase”. When the temperature dipped recently, I wore it for the first time and realized that it not only takes a bit of money to stay warm, but also time. It took me about five minutes to zip myself in! But when it was on, I was warm as toast. Hot toast, fresh out of the toaster, that is.

Of course, it matters to me that my new coat looks nice as well – I did try on a few the day that I bought it, until we found “The One”. But if it’s minus 20 and I’m feeling toasty, I completely forget what I look like anyways. But I do know that this coat would look ridiculous with running shoes. And that’s a good thing.