The best winter

I've made a pact with myself this year to not let the dislike of the cold and winter from years past drag me down.  I had to make this agreement with myself in order to keep my sanity for the next few months.  After almost 7 months of winter and then minimal amounts of free time to actually be out in the heat of summer I spontaneously started cursing when I woke up to the first snow fall.  I could not accept that winter had come again.  The warning shot of winter melted, and I realized that I had to change my attitude or I would not make it through this year.

An important aspect of this pact was realizing that I just can't talk to people about the weather ever this winter.  When I'm around someone who hates the cold as much as me I join in on the cold smack talk and feel worse.  If I'm around someone who loves the cold it becomes a conversation stalemate with nothing more to say until the topic changes.  All this week I've been using a lot of humour about the weather to shift the topic and it has been working nicely.

This is all thanks to last week helping to wean me off of my desire for a longer Autumn season.  I spent the majority of my time on the road.  I drove up to Saskatoon with their noticeably higher levels of snow.  With the bright sunshine and warm wind it was a perfect couple of days to get used to the snow again.  Driving then further on to Price Albert I found where winter has been hanging out for much longer.  With Semis Jack-knifed on the highway and an army troop carrier truck on its side in the ditch we were pretty careful on the roads.  It was this gradient of progressively more white as we went up that helped ease me into it rather than the shock of a sudden dump.  On the way back it was just solid snow the whole way.  Winter had snuck back to Regina and set up camp.  But thankfully I had my game plan ready this year for how to cope.

I found my car encrusted by the ice rain and then about 2-3 inches of snow on top. 

I set to work with the first part of my plans.  I now keep my ice scraper in the back seat on the floor.  It seems so simple now.  When I go to get it, the avalanche of snow will land in the back-seat and not the driver's.  I've only had a chance to store my car in garage for winter approximately 3 times in my life so I'm pretty used to having snow on my car but this year I'm purposefully not going to be lazy about removing all of it.  I've got a few other little things planned like lifting the wind shield wipers off the glass at night so they don't cement themselves down. 

I've always been one of those people who doesn't layer enough for the cold, or if I do have enough layers for heat then there is the wind chill factor that sneaks in through every seam.  This year I will not skimp on preparation and layering clothing.  Even if I don't think it is going to be so cold I'm going to always have my big coat, small gloves and mittens, extra layer of either outer shell pants or having some tights on under my clothes.

I'm also think about getting one of these little jaunty ice scrappers but it might not help me stay positive.  Maybe I'll go with an ice scraper that is also something to keep my hand warm.  Keeping my mind off the cold with creative projects and having an emergency stash of scarves (my socially acceptable blankets) will hopefully be enough to make this my best winter.

Please share any ways that you make winter barable, and if you love winter then what aspects do you love?  

Spy or crazy

So today at work it came to my attention that everyone I have just started working with were of the opinion that I was a mole, a plant, or a spy.  There are three major reasons for this. 

1) The people I work with (by their own admission) are a paranoid lot
2) My dad works for them as a private investigator
3) I'm always writing

This last one is the big one.  I always have something to write on.  For the most part I use my phone's note sections or send myself emails.  But that constant use of a phone doesn't really go over well with people in a work setting.  So I got a notebook to keep my thoughts in order.  I collect up all my ideas and just keep my mind from being overwhelmed by keeping track of all this new information coming in.  But it freaked people out. A lot.

I was asked around my 3rd day not to write any more during lunch.  They didn't like that I was making a list of ideas for what to bring for lunch or writing down my plans for the weekend.  They got rather creeped  out by it.  I was a bit embarrassed but kept writing because that's just how I think.

Today last day of my second week my office mate somehow got to telling me that she thought she was going to loose her job from all the stuff I was writing down.  I was completely thrown off.  I had been making a list of pros and cons for traveling next year and told her so. 

Pro: Adventure                    Con: No stability     
Pro: Having a hot winter       Con: Not being able to afford a house

She just started laughing.

I tried to let people know through the day that I wasn't a spy and just this is how I think... which means that people now think I'm crazy.  I prefer people thinking I'm a spy.

One good thing that came out of this is that my office mate has declared that she thinks I'm cool rather than crazy (which is always nice to hear).  She asked why I didn't blog, and it got me thinking about this blog that I just stopped working on.  So I found a list of writing prompts to get me back into the swing of things and have started pulling together some thoughts for the next few months.

Essential life advice

I've lived a pretty quiet life.  I sometimes wonder if I've missed out on the sage advice that is supposed to come from elders to keep you from screwing up or to guide you.  I think our generation gets most of its words of wisdom from television, movies and books.  Nothing wrong with that, I just feel that I can be thankful that I have one poignant moment in my real life of advice.  And I have some nameless guy to thank.

It does make for a striking image.  The three of us sitting around a camp fire in the pine wood forest, the light from the stars barely illuminating the dark water of the lake through the trees.  Just me and my childhood friend sitting with a guy who must have been in his mid to late twenties. The light from the flames not big enough to see clearly inside the rim of his hood and under his baseball cap.  I think he knew my friend but I can't remember if his name was ever said.  There he sits in my mind hunched over actually saying the words "I want you to know something important, something I wish I had known"  The advice was to my friend, this young boy.  I think we were fifteen at the time... maybe a bit younger.  My friend was staring blankly into the fire and I was right next to him trying to stay as still as possible.  It felt like I'd stowed away along on some ritual right of passage for boys and if I moved at all the guy would stop talking.  I don't even think my friend was listening to him.  The guy said for my friend to find a woman who kept surprising him.  Someone who would say lets go horseback riding rather than go to a movie. 

I can't remember if he added anything to it passed that but I remembered walking away thinking that in order to find someone who surprises you, you have to be a person who is just as surprising.  To be a person worth that person's time.