Thursday, January 17, 2013

Seriously? You’re going to talk about the weather?

Frozen Trees
Let me explain myself: I am from the West Coast of British Columbia. I grew up talking about the weather constantly. There’s a lot of weather there, so we talk about it - a lot.

January is the month when I want to crawl in a hole and die. I hate January so so so much. I just want to run away from January. Nothing good comes from January.

That’s not entirely true. I was married in January – that was pretty awesome. I have some friends that were born in January and I like them, so that’s a good thing. I usually love New Year’s, there’s the beginning of awards season, and Sundance, but everything else is out.

This year so far has been a struggle. We get these inversion things where the cold air is sucked in and trapped in the valley and I HATE them. The air doesn’t move and it’s hazy and below freezing and nothing melts. YUCK. The air quality is so bad. Everything is grey. Not angry stormy rainy or snowy skies grey, but no colour nothing happening in the sky grey; blah grey. It's like the sun doesn't even work. Of the 17 days we’ve had of January, ten of them have been inversions and three of them have been where it snows all day and the commute is awful and you don’t want to go anywhere. We had some snow at the beginning of the year – just a couple of inches - which made the ground cold, which caused an inversion, which made it even colder. This lasted a week. Then we got a big wind storm which mixed the air enough to clear everything out, give the sun a chance to come through and warm things up, and bring in another snow storm. This storm brought an additional twelve inches. This continued to keep the ground cold and caused another inversion. It has been so cold this year. Bitter cold. My bones ache and I’m so tired. I’m pretty sure we’ve only had two or three days where the high temperature has been above freezing. It’s so cold and the air quality is so bad, that even if I had the time, I can’t take Orso out for a walk and he is going stir crazy. Everything is icy and grey and snow covered and I’m miserable. I can’t get warm. I can’t get motivated.

Eli McCann posts about what a cruel, cruel witch January is. I really couldn’t agree more.

January is supposed to be the month that you start the new year and work on all those awesome goals you set for yourself. This is a joke because January is so depressing that you have even less motivation to do anything to improve yourself. I just feel like cancelling everything. The weather is really affecting my mood.  This bums me out to no end. It’s been on my mind and I’ve been stewing it around for some time. This is unacceptable to me. I hate feeling so UGH all the time. Since I made up with Snow and with Summer, I have been trying to figure out how to make up with January.

I have come up with a few things, but I’m not quite there yet. Here are some of the things I’ve been mulling around:




Manicure with Summer Colours
  • I’m trying to come up with a Get out of your Funk/Listen to when you’re Blue playlist – but it’s slow going. I have been listening to my Summer playlist which has helped a little, but not enough.

  • It gets foggy with an inversion and sometimes the fog freezes causing my world to look like this, so there is some beauty.
    Weeping Japanese Maple covered in frost

  • The boys want to learn how to ski/snowboard. DH has skied Utah, but not since he’s lived here and I have done some skiing and snowboarding and love it, but haven’t had the time nor funds to take that on since moving to Utah. There’s a hill about an hour and a half away from here that’s really good for kids to learn on. When an inversion happens, it’s actually warmer up in the mountains than down in the valley, and going up in the mountains is the way to escape the inversion. Going up in the mountains is good exercise. I put my snowboarding pants on in order to shovel the driveway last Saturday and I had to let the adjustable waist out because I could barely get them on! That was a wake up call for me as I have not worn the pants for about two years. (Last year was really crummy as far as snowfall was concerned) I have this total hatred of driving in snowy conditions, so driving up in the mountains on purpose in the winter seems like a really dumb thing to do, and a three hour drive round trip seems like a major time commitment, which is why I’m still mulling it around. I should look into this further.
  • The Sundance Independent Film Festival happens every January. I should volunteer. I almost did a couple of years ago, but was feeling too crappy in January to fully commit. All I want to do is hunker down and disappear in January, not go out in the cold and manage crowd control. Plus the weather is so unpredictable, and the aforementioned hate of driving in the mountains in the snow. Park City is not nearly as far away as I think it is, and it’s out of the inversion. I still think this would be such a fun thing to do, so I’m still stewing on this too. Maybe next year.
  • In past years I have made improvements to my winter wardrobe. There is a lot more wool and cashmere. I have really good winter boots, the aforementioned snowboarding pants that are GREAT for walking the dog in the snow, and a down jacket that keeps me warm. I have some cute hats, gloves and scarves that make going outside MUCH less painful. I love all my warm tights and cozy sweaters and socks, but I’m a bit bored with some of my wardrobe (skirts, pants, shirts) and in a bit of a funk because I don’t want to buy anything new because of my size. I am in major need of a winter wardrobe makeover. I need to weed a lot of things out. I think this will help me to feel better. I always feel better after I clean out my closet.
  • Happy Face mug, Red Spoon
    I have this Happy Face mug that totally makes me smile. It’s great for hot chocolate, which also makes me smile, but hot chocolate is so huge in calories and so bad for my skin when I drink it on a regular basis, but it is so good for warming the cockles of my soul when it’s so so so very cold outside.
  • I ran away to Maui once in January – that was perfect, but I can’t exactly afford to run off to the tropics any time it’s cold. I have a tropical island photo on my desktop. That helps, but only a little.
  • I’ve been eating oatmeal – that warms me up, but I worry again about calories.
  • I’ve been baking and cooking. This also makes me worry about calories. I also make a big mess and there are twice as many dishes, but moving around doing dishes warms me up, running the dishwasher and using the oven warms the house up, and YUM!
  • I have been trying to go to the gym – working out warms one up like no one’s business, but I’m still adjusting to DH being home. He seems to take up more of my time than anyone.
  • I could do a manicure with happy hot colours, but my hands are so dry and my nails are so brittle...
  • We had our house built with a chimney, but didn’t let the builders put in our fireplace as it was so much extra money, and we wanted to be able to do it on our own terms and in our own time. We need to put in our fireplace, but it only costs money. We’ve been in the house almost seven years…

Sitting by the fire in my cashmere sweater, wool socks, and jeans that fit, sipping hot chocolate, munching on chocolate chip cookies and listening to good music while reading a good book after a day in the mountains sounds as close to perfect as it can get, doesn’t it?

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