Spring....

Every year I look forward to the closing of Christmas season like I would look forward to a funeral march. Not only is it such a big deal in my family, the way we celebrate Christmas and spend time making memories with our kids, it also always marks the end of a page. Another year is waiting around the bend and January and it's lack of seasonal festivities looms over us. Suddenly the lights go out, the wrapping paper is miles away in the landfill, and no one wants to look at turkey again for quite some time. It's back to the dieting and the resolutions. Back to everyone complaining about winter and the cold and the wet. 

I am one of those few who actually enjoy the winter months. After Christmas it actually does me good to curl up with a good book on a cold, damp day and drink a cup of coffee to go with it. I do not like the summer months.  The sweat, the Mosquitos, the humidity, the AGONY of a typical southern summer. No, thank you!!!! 

However, spring and fall are 2 seasons that I think we can all agree to LOVE. In fall you have the dropping temps to relieve us of the smothering dog days of summer, the rush you get passing through a small town on a Friday night and seeing the high school football stadium lit up like the middle of the day. The leaves changing all sorts of indescribable reds and oranges and yellows. It's just a beautiful time of year with a cooler crispness in the air and the holidays approaching. 

Spring is almost polar opposite from the fall (and there is no pun there because I wasn't referring to temps). The warmth in the air is there to revive the many souls who loathe the coldness, wetness, and unpredictably of the winter season. Colors emerge that are a sight for sore eyes. Pinks, greens, white, corals. Pollen coats our cars in yellow dust as things awaken from their winter slumber. Everything in the air just feels...... Different. Even different from the beauty of fall. Birds chirp louder, neighborhood dogs bark more enthusiastically, and there's no denying the smell of a freshly mowed lawn. The air around spring feels alive. If it could talk you'd hear a lot of gentle whispering. The sun even comes alive with a warmth that is unforgiving just a couple of months down the road. But the sun on a typical spring day is hypnotizing. It's capable of even putting one in a trance. The kind of trance that finds you in a hammock in the backyard with a cold beverage of choice and a good book. Or maybe just the sounds of your own thoughts as you listen to nature come back to life slowly. 

No. I'm not looking forward to summer. Big hair, boob sweat, leather upholstery in a hot car, Mosquitos, sweating in crevices of your body you didn't know could even sweat..... No thank you. It's not for me. Summer brings me 2 pleasurable things: flip-flops and tomatoes--- homegrown tomatoes. (Nothing like a tomato sandwich on white bread and loaded with Blue Pate mayo! A southern delicacy.)

But for now, I'll enjoy the beauty of spring. (Although, here in the south, Mr. Winter is surely not through with us yet, as he's very unpredictable like that around here!) I'll enjoy seeing my curtains flapping in the breeze of the open windows, hearing the neighbor crank up his zero-turn and taking it for a spin. And unlike fall and football, I'll enjoy the soccer being played, and the smell of the freshness in the air and enjoying the warmth of the sunshine before she becomes unforgiving and unlovable.