February 20th, 2017

This is still February, right?  I'm only checking because, it looks an awful lot like spring outside.  This is so strange.  Not only are we are a two hour time difference from Colorado, but about four months different in seasons.

I'm not certain when winter even happened.  Oh wait, we did have a couple of chilly days, it must have been then.  I vaguely recall wearing long pants and a sweater and making soup......

Anyone who has ever moved, and nowadays that is most Americans, knows that there are always adjustments to be made. But this is the biggest adjustment, as an adult, that I've ever made seasonsally and I'm thinking this is going to take a little more time than getting used to a new zipcode. 

When I was a small child, we moved from Illinois, where I was born, which is a land of great winters, to southern California, a land of no winter at all.  A place of perpetual spring and summer.  It was sunny almost all of the time which was awesome for a kid.  We could play outside nearly ever day!  We lived in La Mesa which is outside of San Diego.  I recall it as being cool in the mornings and evenings and perfect during the day.  Everyday I wore a sweater on my way to school and every afternoon I returned with said sweater mashed into my lunch box for the return trip, much to the chagrin of my poor mother who had to iron out those mashed sweater wrinkles and begged me to stop doing it.   At any rate, we kids adjusted rather quickly.  My mother, not so much.  She was born and raised on the coast of Maine. She was used to weather and lots of it.  Grey, foggy days, sea raging days, drizzle, rain, hail, thunder& lightning screaming across the skies, cold, snow, frost and occasionally, the sun.  She did not adjust well to California.

Here, I have been noticing the lawn greening up again.  It had gone dormant so I suppose that was the "winter" indicator that was the biggest. But honestly, if we had a functional sprinkler system like lots of people do here, the lawn would have been the same amount of green year 'round. I have noticed some and wondered it if was faux lawn until I got close enough to see, nope, real lawn. Damnit.

Anyone would think that seeing the giant Eagle's Nest on that hike a couple of weeks ago would have tipped me off. Nesting season = equals spring, you idiot.  But I honestly didn't make the connection.  Knowing next to nothing about eagles, for all I knew, they were some weird, winter nesting bird! Or again, for what passes as winter here.  It wasn't until I saw the hibiscus blooming again yesterday that I started putting it all together. Nests, greening grass, flowers blooming...holy cats..it's spring!

So please bear with me.  If I refer to a timeframe of the year by the wrong official season, I may be referring to Florida seasons not calendar approved seasons. I have not lost my mind, yet.  Do not call those nice fellows with the extra large butterfly nets. 

I just checked today's weather and it's supposed to be 80 degrees!  80!  Did we skip spring and we just moved into summer?  Am I ever going to figure this out?  Will we fully adjust to the seasonal calendar here?  For the answers to these and others questions, stay tuned to my Blog.

Well, I  don't know about you, but I will probably be wearing shorts today. And sandals.  I'm sure Tim will be closing windows and turning the air conditioning back on.  Still beats shoveling snow.  Enjoy whatever weather your day brings to you and whatever season it is that you are experiencing.  As for me, since I can't beat 'em, I guess I'll join 'em.