Redartz; Hello again, gang! Still busily working on a special post for next Tuesday (and trying to get a visiting grandchild down to bedtime), so my introductory comments today will be brief . Laurels, fame and fortune await the first commenter to provide us a topic for the week (okay, maybe just a hearty "thank you"). The stage is yours; and be sure to stop by next Tuesday...
8 comments:
Red, your special post is more exciting than Christmas :D
OK, here's my question: a few months ago I asked what things do you hate about Summer so now I'm asking the polar (ho, ho) opposite:
What things do you LOVE about winter?
Hmmm, I guess Xmas gives me an excuse to eat cake and cookies, so that's pretty nice. But it's currently -40 (with the wind chill) here in Saskatchewan and predicted to stay that way for a while, so I'm finding it hard to enjoy winter right now.
Well, as an adult, I don't love much about winter anymore, lol. I'm tired of the cold and hopeful to be transferring to Miami in a few months!
That said, as a kid I enjoyed it:
Sledding!
Pick up hockey games!
Throwing snowballs at cars and school buses!
Skitching behind cars and school buses (avoid the exhaust LOL!)
Endless poker games until 1-2 AM!
A bit of booze to go with those endless poker games, lol!
Schedule's been brutal for awhile now, which- along with a dead laptop & barely-functioning loanerlaptop- has prevented me from chiming in on some beloved topics recently. Man-- and I could have written a non-fiction book on last week's Christmas Tree/Christmas Music post-!
But let me at least say:
WINTER IS MY FAVORITE SEASON--!
There's the whole Christmas Season in the early chunk, of course.
And I had about 3 or 4 youthful years as a burgeoning National Ski Patroller.
Sledding as a kid-- absolutely.
I find snowscapes beautiful and magical-- almost supernatural in their appeal.
I have ALWAYS loved being out in snowstorms and blizzards (which drove my Mom nuts. . . as it does my wife--). Lying on your back in the soft, fresh cover-- and watching the cascade of flakes dropping continuously out of the clouds, perpetually replacing each other. And the sound is unlike anything else on earth-- EVERYTHING is muted and muffled and softened, an intense hush. Except for the surprisingly loud, whispering hiss that even snowflakes can make if they fall fast enough and heavy enough. We had a couple of blizzards in the area where I took a lawn chair out in the driveway (after shoveling #1) to simply sit there in the midst of the quiet, ongoing storm.
Tackle football in the snow.
Snow saucering.
The coziness of being snowed in-- the abdication of responsibility. . .
Even, to a certain extent, the times that the folks in our cul-de-sac have gotten out there together to shovel ourselves out to the proper street, as the county routinely abandons us in the worst events-- assuming it will melt before they'd get to us anyhow (incorrectly).
Yep-- Winter for me!
HB
No sweating (well, not much.....we still have some upper 70's with humidity days where I live).
No mosquitoes (well, unless we have several consecutive upper 70's with humidity and rain days).
Mostly cooler temps from October until mid/late March.....for the most part.
The chance to gather with family several times.
Where I live, we don't get but maybe a couple of days of snow at the most, but when we do, it's pretty special. Growing up, I think it snowed maybe two times between the time I was four or five and eighteen. My kids get a little bit of snow every year.....at least one decent one, so that's good.
Winter is my favorite season, too. Spring only lasts about a month before the heat gets oppressive and Autumn has about the same span.
As I believe I said in that previous post about summer, I don't necessarily have a favorite season, and find things to like, and dislike, about them all.
One thing I like about winter, or about snowfall specifically, was mentioned by HB above: the sound it makes, and that odd hush. A few times in recent years I was out hiking with our dog in the woods when snow started falling - I'd just stop and watch and listen for a good 10-15 minutes (while after a few minutes the dog sits there and starts giving me this, 'hey, is everything o.k.?' look).
That's about the only thing I like about the snow, though. The charm wears off pretty quick for me, and man, do I hate shoveling it - we have a *really* long driveway.
Something specific to our house in particular is that we have a tile stove for heating. Getting the fire going is sometimes a pain, but once that thing gets heated up, it's so warm and toasty inside. It's great coming in from the cold and just stretching out on the couch and savoring the warmth.
Thanks for the comments.
I'd love to see some snow - here in the UK we've had one of the wettest autumns since records began. I'm absolutely sick of rain, rain and more rain - and it's raining again today.
HB, you can write about Christmas trees and Christmas music in this week's topic if you want - we'll read it!
But the two main things I like about winter are:
1) I don't need to cut the grass, which is something I loathe doing during the summer.
2) I love going out in the dark mornings, especially if there's a starry sky (unfortunately there haven't been many recently due to the persistent rainy weather). I'll even go for a walk on a dark morning when I don't need to go out - and it's especially nice at this time of year seeing all the Christmas lights around the town.
The Food!
But when I was young everything that Charlie Horse said, except we called it bumper-hitching or shagging. Man I lost a lot of gloves that way.
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