Well, I should say that I love it now that I live in Florida, it wasn’t always my favorite time of year. Originally from upstate New York (Albany area) winter for me meant cold, ice, snow, slush, shoveling, etc.

 

As we watched the weather and news reports on the recent major snow storms that hit the New England area, my husband and I were reminded of why we moved to Florida and started taking a trip down a snowy and cold memory lane.

 

Remember how we had to bundle up to go outside and play as kids? It seemed like it took an hour to get the snow pants, the mittens, the boots, etc. on just to spend 15 minutes outside, by then you were wet, cold and ready for the hot chocolate that mom promised you!

 

Then there was our first blizzard in 1993, 36 inches of snow overnight. That was unfathomable to me at the time; I can’t imagine what it was like for folks in Buffalo who recently had 6’ of snow all at once to deal with!

 

Oh, what about the year ( ’94 I believe) where the old saying “It’s too cold to snow” got blown totally out the window! That was the year that the air temperature (not wind chill!) was -27 and we were still getting snow!! That year, not only did you have to worry about driving in the snow, you had to worry about your car even starting, even the car batteries didn’t like 27 below zero temps!

 

That was also the year that we “adopted” some of our four legged and flying neighbors. My husband wasn’t very happy with the amount of money I was spending to feed the neighbors, but we all made it through that winter.

The final major snow storm for us was Christmas 2002. On Christmas day we had 22 inches of snow and then a week later we had another 22 inches. It became a bit of a pattern that year, large amounts of snow every week or two. By the time we were done, we had 100 inches of snow. That is when we decided to move to Orlando!!

 

 

Now, we enjoy winters where our “cold” overnight temps run in the high 30’s low 40’s and daytime highs are in the upper 60’s lower 70’s…green grass, dining out al fresco, walks in the parks, etc. So, when the groundhog forecasted 6 more weeks of winter a few weeks ago, we just smiled!

 

Happy Friday!