It’s Hard Not to Be ADD When Everything Around You Is

Unlike Siri, winter doesn’t get me down after awhile, but that’s because here in Colorado, winter is a bizarre and very confused season, which tends to turn into a bizarre and very confused spring.

Take yesterday, for example. 75 degrees (~24 degrees for you Celsius people) and sunny. It was brilliant. We went for a long walk in short sleeves and played in the yard. Today? Blizzard. (Although admittedly a fairly warm blizzard. It’s not sticking to the streets but it’s blowing around pretty impressively.)

We have a saying here: “If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes.” Normally it’s not quite that extreme, but it was 50 degrees this morning before we started blizzarding. Just saying.

So while we don’t get enough cold, dark winter days to really make one get lost in the depths of winter, I do find that about this time every year my attention span goes a bit haywire. Early March is when we start to see the first true hints of spring, and it gets us all excited. As a friend of mine pointed out, once when have our first stretch of warm weather for the year, we Coloradoans just give up on winter. We just pretend it’s not happening anymore, for better or worse.

(Which is why you will see pictures of us in shorts or t-shirts in the middle of snow storms in March and April. We’re not crazy, we’re just extremely optimistic.)

So, when we have a nice, warm day like yesterday, my attention span’s like, “Why am I inside working? I could walk to the coffee shop! I could walk to the playground! I could plant the vegetable garden!” (Terrible idea, by the by, because it’ll probably snow into May again.) And today, when it’s cold and snowy and miserable, it’s “This could be the last snow forever, should I go play in it? Shall I drink cocoa and have a fire and watch Disney movies under a blanket on the couch in case I don’t get to again until November?”

My focus has gone out the window, quite literally.

Spring is also a very interesting season. It tends to snow just as much or more in the spring, so the flowers start coming up in the warm weather and then invariably get destroyed by a late season snow storm. Growing up, I saw snow more often at Easter than Christmas.

The native plants are used to this sort of madness. They either start up a bit late, or they’re so hardy they just laugh at the snow. The poor transplants starting leafing and blooming and have a hard time of it all the way around.

(Speaking of which, we have a magnolia bush next to our driveway. Bit daft, honestly, but the poor thing is so confused that it flowers completely before the leaves even think about coming out for the year. There is nothing odder than giant flowers coming out of plain, old wood.)

We talk about the weather a lot ’round these parts.

Anyway! I am excited for spring even though it won’t be much different than winter, and it will invariably turn into summer, and I despise summer.

How’s the last dredges of your winter going? Excited for spring?