Hope Springs or Spring Hopes

It is officially spring! And it's really spring and not meteorological spring, which I had never even heard of until last year. I think people make this stuff up to see if anyone will notice. But, I digress. It's spring!

I absolutely loathe winter and cold weather. Snow is a four-letter-word in our home. Growing up, we would hope for snow, pray for snow, perform snow dances in our pajamas while my youngest brother stood on his head eating peanut butter and reciting the alphabet backwards. But in Alabama, snow was a novelty, and it was pretty for a day, then gone. Here, it's an inconvenience, a hazard, an eyesore. Here, it doesn't melt away after a day or two, it lingers, piled up on the sides of the roads, dirty and dangerous. Here, it doesn't automatically mean that you have a day off work or school. Here, it causes our already lamentable commute to stretch into a 3 hour ordeal wrought with worries of sliding off the road or of developing the NEED TO PEE without the hope of a bathroom nearby. Here, it fills valuable parking spaces for weeks, teasing you at Wal-Mart, mocking you at home, laughing at you as you try to find a space at the grocery store. During our first winter in Virginia, My Sweet Husband (MSH) had to melt an entire 7-foot high mound of the stuff that had been inconsiderately scooped into our parking space by carrying down trashcan after trashcan filled with warm water using only one arm. Our rental office callously dismissed his request that the mound be removed from our only allotted parking space saying that the snow removal company had to put it somewhere.

But, that's all behind us now. I'll never have to worry that the car is frozen shut or wonder if I have enough layers on to survive. I'll never have to wear another scarf or don another coat or lament over another hairstyle destroyed by a hat. Spring brings out the eternal optimist in me. MSH and I can open all the windows and feel the lovely breeze flow through our home; I can tolerate being outside for extended periods. I'm even considering buying a cart so that I can walk to the grocery store. I just want to be outside. It's still a little too chilly for all of that right now, but I can feel the warmer weather coming; I can smell it in the air. The really cold days are occurring less frequently. I know that winter will come again, but right now, it seems that it will be spring forever. I can't wait to see the flowers bloom and everything turn green. The Cherry Blossom Festival is right around the corner, and I am determined to go this year and take pictures. I've even painted my nails a lovely melon color in honor of spring, and I would show you, but I can't hold the camera still enough with one hand to take a picture of my other hand. I tried and ended up with blurry messes on the camera that I had to delete before MSH saw them and learned what kind of woman he really married.

It's spring, and the world is beginning to right itself, and my office was filled with sunshine all day today. It's spring, and I'm thinking about what vegetables we'll plant and what foods we'll grill. It's spring, and I'm shaking off the winter and redecorating our home in my mind and planning a vacation. It's spring!