Wintry Confliction

Right around this time every year I feel very conflicted about both winter and living in Massachusetts. If I was still in Virginia it would not be quite as cold yet, and the leaves would still be on all of the trees. I would have a longer time to wear autumn clothing as well; it's already too cold in the morning and evening to wear only a light jacket. I wouldn't be running the heat all evening and morning in addition to overnight, and the growing season wouldn't be as good as done. When I woke up in the morning the air outside of the covers wouldn't be so cold, so maybe I'd actually be willing to get out of bed.

Despite all of that though I do love winter in MA. I love waking up to a snow covered driveway, and layering on the covers at night. I'm always excited about a good excuse to drink hot drinks, so I consume a large amount of hot tea every day. I love snuggling under the blanket while watching TV in the evenings, and using a warm shower to warm up in the morning. I always wear layers anyway, so soon I can start layering with the sweaters that have been under my bed for about 5 months. I love being bundled to some extent.



I also love playing in the snow, and I love that we can still drive around after and while the snow is falling! Sure, the snow comes more often here than in VA, and we get more of it each time it falls as well, but still the roads are generally clear soon after it stops falling. People are also a lot less idiotic about how they are driving in the snow (for the most part).

Of course, clean roads mean school is never canceled. Usually I'm fine with that, but since I'm taking a 9AM class this semester it means I have to get up extra early when it snows to clean off my car and warm it up! That's of course going to be a problem every morning they don't call for snow and it snows anyway, as well as mornings where they call for snow and it doesn't happen. Either I end up not getting up early even though I need to clean off my car, or getting up early and then not needing to clean off my car! So I hope the snow stays away for most of the semester, because getting to school by 9AM is enough of a challenge for me without that extra 15-30 min of work!

At least in the winter our lab at school is too warm instead too cold; I can take off extra jacket layers instead of wrapping myself in a blanket as I work!

Thus, I have a conundrum. I wish it was warm outside, as it's just barely too cold most of the day for me to really want to sit outside. However, I also wish winter would hurry up and get here so I can wake up to a winter wonderland most mornings! But then again, I don't want to have to spend the time to clean pieces of that wonderland off of my car. Sheesh.

I wonder if Blacksburg was ideal as it's not as cold as MA, but you still get snow relatively often. Not to mention the bus system is good enough that I could just take the bus instead of cleaning off my car. Oh well, I gave it up to come to MA!