Love/Hate

I have a complicated relationship with winter.

Well, actually most of my relationships are complicated, but let's just focus on this season for now.  No need to psychoanalyze everything.

I love living in an area with four seasons.  I think I would go bonkers in California - not just because of the liberals either.  As nice as the idea of continuous 70-degree days sounds, I think I'd get tired of it pretty fast.

I like the variety of food that comes with a seasonal climate.  I mean, if it were 80 degrees in December, who would want to eat soup?  Or roasted turkey?  Or baked squash?

It's easier to get warm than it is to cool down.  I'm pretty sensitive to hot weather, and get heat exhaustion easily.  So no desert life for me.

I love the sound of snow.  That eerie quiet when you wake up at 4 a.m. and just know that it's snowing.

Christmas lights without snow just aren't the same.  The snow lends a little extra sparkle to holiday decorations.

Also, deciduous trees just look sad and dead without a coating of snow.

I don't particularly like driving in the snow, but now that I have all-wheel-drive it's not so bad.

I also don't like cleaning snow off my car, but that's what a garage is for.  (Or a husband!)

I hate the static and dry skin that comes with cold weather.  We don't have a built-in humidifier, and while we run a small one in the bedroom at night the house is still really dry.  So is my office.  I hate getting zapped by everything I touch, even my cubicle walls!  And I always get the worst dry skin in the places I can't reach very well.  Sometimes I can get a helping hand, sometimes not, and sometimes I make a trip to the bathroom at work with a bottle of lotion.  (Wow, that doesn't sound right.)

What about you?  What's your relationship with Old Man Winter?