Is It Spring Yet?

It is cold. Still. Look, I know it's only mid-January but this is Tennessee - shouldn't there be birdsong and sunshine most of the year round?  I wouldn't be so conscious of weather if I didn't spend a good portion of  almost everyday outside (I own a pet-sitting company and walk dogs all day). Last summer was pretty hot, even by TN standards - we had longer stretches than usual in the upper nineties with humidity so bad that within twenty minutes outside, sweat would be running down my back and the backside of my legs.  I could not wait for cold weather! I said I wouldn't complain. I took notice of how that sticky heat made me feel and vowed to remember that feeling and to conjure it when I felt a complaint about winter's temperatures coming on. Wouldn't you know it - after an unusually hot summer, it's been an unusually cold and, worse, SNOWY, winter!! We seem to have one snowstorm after another after another. Granted this is not snow like they suffer in upstate New York or Chicago - it 3 to 5 inches one week, 2 inches the next. But still, it gets old, especially on day two when it's been trodden down and the town streets and sidewalks have frozen into an ice rink overnight.  I've only slipped and fallen once and nothing was broken but . . . .

Despite my frustration with the winter, I AM an optimist and this is my Diary, so here's what I've noticed lately. . . . on my way to my bootcamp class at 5.20am each morning I can see the sky is lighter than it has been for a long while - it won't be long before the sun and I are rising at the same time. Yesterday, walking a dog in Sylvan Park, I saw buds beginning to form on the bare branches of what I seem to remember from last year is a Dogwood tree! I actually smiled a big grinning smile and stopped and looked at it! Then, on returning home, I saw the tree out front of my house also has buds! Today there were thousands of birds everywhere I went. Thousands of them, grouped by type - Robins and Starlings - on front lawns, in parks, on golf courses, in the trees in the neighborhoods where I walked - it must be some phenomenon heralding the imminence of Springtime - they were loud and busy and I was happy to see them back.

Seasons come and seasons go. We are pretty fortunate to live in Tennessee where, just when you think you can't stand it anymore, things change! I certainly don't want to wish my life away and I will endeavor to do better at appreciating the season I'm in but I must say - I'M READY FOR SPRING!!!