Well, the southern weathermen have certainly had more opportunities than usual this year to throw around some of those words they don't get to use much in these parts.....icy conditions, winter weather advisory, snow, sleet.  I've joined the mob of panicked southerners on three occasions this winter in our hysterical quest to buy milk and bread after the televised use of the words, "frozen precipitation".  That's two more milk and bread trips than our yearly average.  (I think we panic so, down here, because we take our food very seriously and the thought of not being able to get to it....well, that's just more than we can bear.)  All that to say, we've had an unusually cold and wet winter!

Social media has been flooded with countdowns to spring, the romanticizing of summer, and endless lamentations of the misery that Old Man Winter is doling out and I'm just over here like....."Hey y'all, I like winter".  I know I go against popular thinking on this, but I've always been a cold weather girl.  Nothing gets me more excited than a forecast for a cold, cloudy, windy day!  It all begins for me when the cool winds of fall start to blow and crescendos with the dark, blustery days of winter.  It's crazy, I know.

I love crackling fires, blankets, any kind of soup, crunchy leaves, jackets, a good bowl of chili, boots, football, scarves, hot chocolate, and Christmas!  I really can't think of anything about this cold weather that I don't like.  I suppose, of all the seasons, winter plays to my natural propensity to curl up and relax as opposed to the other seasons when curling up can be misinterpreted as laziness. 

When recounting all of the things that draw me to the cold, it would be an oversight to omit one of the most obvious....the beginning of what we, women, know as Winter Shavings Time.  Not to be confused with the more widely publicized, Daylight Savings Time, this unspoken, looser leg grooming regimen for women traditionally begins on the day that Daylight Savings Time ends.  This time period offers flexibility and freedom for women everywhere....a kind of vacation, if you will, giving a whole new meaning to the broader term, winter break.

Sure, it's not something talked about at garden clubs, baby showers, or the women's Thursday morning study of Revelations and it's almost never brought up at bridge tables or junior league salad luncheons where little sprigs of mint garnish your tea, but we all know it exists, ladies.  You can act smug if you want to, but you know, good and well, that week when the church bulletin reminds you to set your clocks back an hour, the mood of the ladies Sunday School department starts to perk up a bit.  Gone is the constant, unrelenting exposure of the capri pants, the little dresses, and shorts.  Hello, concealing screen of leggings, boots, and such.

You know that conversation you have with yourself in the shower between November and February...."These pasty, white legs are going to be under layers of socks, jeans, and boots all day where only the good Lord will see them...I think I can go another couple of days."  By day three, you pray a quick...."Please protect me today from broken legs or any other type of medical emergency that would require that my pants be cut off."  Amen.

With today being very spring-like and the forecast calling for temps in the 70's this week, I'm trying to relish the last couple of breaths of winter and muster up the fortitude to brave another oppressive, southern summer.  Those days when you open the door and the heat hits you in the face like a skillet full of scalding grease and the humidity that weighs so heavy in the air that it tests your very will to live.  Oh, I hope all you, summer people, will be happy then.  Those hot days just go on and on and on some more.......as does the shaving.  Sigh.