Early Spring?

This week has been cold, cold, cold. But there has been quite a bit of sun, so that evens it out in my book. I used to hate winter. I dreaded and loathed every minute of it. But these days, I am finding I like it, maybe even love it a little bit.

Of course I do hate what winter brings, the never-ending viruses and various bacteria infecting our household. But on the plus side, the allergies are at the low end of the spectrum. However I am finding that as the boys get older, they seem to picking up fewer bugs than they did the year before. Geez I hope I'm not jinxing myself by saying that! Perhaps their immune systems are getting stronger? Man I hope so! Don't get me wrong, we still get sick PLENTY around here! It's just that instead of 10 colds per year, we might be down to 3 or 4. So that's good, right?

But back to winter and all it brings.

Snow.

I am loving the snow. I know, I don't have to shovel it (DH does that as I insist I don't know how to use the snowblower and it scares the heck out of me!) or drive in it but it's pretty and above all, fun. The boys have had a blast this year tunneling out caves and forts in our giant snowbanks framing the driveway. And of course there's the skiing.

Ah, skiing.

've only been twice this year, but I love it. And so does the rest of the family.
We would go more often but here are the problems:

1. It's expensive even just for lift tickets.
2. We really only have weekends to go as I work until 5 every weekday and DH is in school sometimes until 5 or 6 o'clock. We could night ski but if we couldn't leave until 5 at the very earliest, that puts us at the slopes at 5:30, on the hill around 5:45 and would only give us an hour, hour and a half of skiing time before we had to go home to bed! And, where would dinner fit in?
3. Only having weekends is difficult as some weekends have been way too cold (in -20's with wind chill!), some we have been sick, and some we have other commitments.
   

So that's why I am hoping that winter lasts a long, long time this year!! We may only have one or two more opportunities to ski in ideal conditions before spring hits us. This coming week the temperature is supposed to go above zero! Yikes! Not good for snow! And that's when things get ugly too, as in dirty and sloppy and just gross outside. It makes it difficult for me to get to school and back with babies, as I can't pull the sled over the many bare patches, but I also can't push a stroller or easily pull a wagon through all the still snowy/slushy patches.

Then there is the clothing. I do love winter clothing, indoor and above all, outdoor. I love that I can hide my body through all the layers. There's no showing off rolls or love handles when you have about four thick layers of cotton/polyester/wool/various materials on top of it! And I don't have to worry about shaving, or the fact that my veins are popping out extra nicely on my legs today, or that my skin is as white as a vampire's.

And as much as I hate being cold, I DESPISE being hot! I can't stand it. It makes me grumpy and short-tempered and very uncomfortable. I can find ways to easily warm up, but cooling off is always harder. So the winter cold is ok by me. Preferable at least to the sticky summer heat.

So don't hate me, but I am NOT hoping for an early spring!

Roll on, winter!

WOW! Post #100!

I went to start a new post when I noticed on my dashboard it said 99 posts. So that would make this one #100, which is kinda cool. Not that that is the subject of my post. The real title is:

My Latest Obsession

I think I've found my new shopping obsession.
Skiing.
Last year, as I blogged about here, I took R skiing for the first time and he loved it. It also renewed my love of the snow sport and R begged and bugged me for the rest of the winter for A) skis of his own, and B) to take him again. I wasn't about to go out and purchase new skis for him based on a one-time thing, and we never did get out again last year.
This year, I've got my shit together and we went to not only one ski swap (where you can buy and sell used ski and snowboard equipment) but TWO! We purchased skis, boots and poles for R and I both, as well as boots for L (a friend gave us skis) as well as helmets and goggles for all three of us. The helmets and goggles are not used of course, but usually at the swaps the resort has their own shops open and apparel and stuff on sale.
I also bought the kids skiing lessons, a set of four lessons, two hours at a time, four days in row right after Xmas. During their lesson I'll do my own skiing, or maybe I'll take a lesson too, I haven't decided yet.
Can I tell you, I am soooo excited for the snow to start! And now I'm all worried too. What if the kids are sick that week? What if it's raining, and there's no snow, which is a very real possibility? I didn't think to ask at the time (DUH!)
As we were shopping for the helmets, we couldn't find one for L so headed out to a somewhat local store called Skiis and Biikes. I'd never been there before, but upon entering I felt like I had died and gone to outerwear heaven! You know how much I love to shop for outerwear (or if you don't, then click the link). There were coats and snowpants of every colour, size and pattern! There were gloves, mittens and matching hats everywhere! And then, the skis, oh the the skis and assorted paraphernalia! SO COOL! So pretty. So expensive.
After finding a helmet for L, I took the sales-guy's advice and went to look at thermal underwear. HOLY! Guess I'll be shopping elsewhere for that! Then I found a pair of really thin gloves that you wear under your normal gloves (perfect for me because my hands are ALWAYS cold!).
$35? Um, no thanks.
So if anyone feels generous and wants to give me a gift card for Xmas, you know where to go!

Inside Boredom

The winter blahs are setting in already. After a couple of weeks of cold, rainy weather, I've gotten into the stay indoors mode. Our outdoor time is now limited to walking to and from the school twice a day. It sucks, really. I guess I could suck it up and take the kids outside anyway, but most of the idiots parents don't bring their child with outdoor appropriate clothing, which makes my job waaaaayyy harder, because then they'll get wet, and then I'll have to change them. Sigh. Try keeping a toddler off the wet grass and out of the puddles on our driveway. Not gonna happen.

So now I'm on the computer while I'm supervising the kids, inbetween diaper changes, snack feedings and fight-breakups. This is not good.

It's not good for a number of reasons.
#1. I'm sitting on my ass, which seems to make it wider somehow (weird how that happens).
#2. My brain is turning to mush from all the mindless drivel (and I don't mean your blogs, other stuff!)
#3. I'm waaaaaayyy too tempted by online shopping. I've already spend over $200 (US) on winter clothing so far. Yikes. Don't tell DH.

At least the kids are happy. For now.

My Secret Obsession

Ok, so you know how lots of women have obsessions over shoes, or makeup, or purses? They love shopping for them, and have tons of them, closets full even...That's not me. I can't stand shoe shopping, I do like buying purses but I limit myself to things on sale and about one new one per year, which is reasonable, I think. And I don't really wear makeup - maybe twice a year if lucky.
What I love, love, love to shop for and buy is ............
WINTER OUTERWEAR.
Ok, I know, that sounds totally crazy and stupid. Ridiculous really. But I just do, I don't know why. Now, I don't go overboard. It's not like everyone in my house has four or five coats each or anything, really, only one or two (in the adults case, 'cause, we don't grow out of our coats!) But I do spend a lot more time than necessary online window shopping for all the latest and coolest outfits. I love dressing my boys up in coordinating outerwear (I don't mean with each other, although that would be cute, I mean with themselves.) I just need them to be matching, which is stupid, because they don't care if they're matching, at least not yet, anyway. But I love having the hat and gloves match the coat, and even better, the boots (although this is much harder to accomplish.)
So here are the brands I have bought in the past and that I would recommend to any newbie parents. For boots, I buy Sorels. I've never had any problems with them, they are warm, waterproof (with some extra help from a waterproofing spray I use, although they do claim to be waterproof on their own) and they last at least two winter seasons (which, around these parts is the equivalent to about 12 months or so, depending on how early the snow falls). I also like that the liner is removable which a) helps with sizing as you can pull it out, have your child try the liner on and you can actually feel where their toes are, and b) you can pull it out to dry out the boots faster, which inevitably get wet from snow falling inside them.
For coats/snowsuits I have had success with Please Mum, a Canadian company and one of my favourite stores to shop for the boys in, Woodland, which is a brand sold in Bonnie Togs, Osh Kosh (but their sizes don't go past six here in Canada for some weird reason) and I always buy Columbia for myself. I haven't yet bought the boys a Columbia jacket, as it's just a little too pricey, but for me, I know my jacket is going to get several years' use.
As for accessories, I like Kombi, Columbia, Please Mum, and I've also bought online from http://www.llbean.com which is also where I do my online browsing/dreaming, as well as http://www.landsend.com .
So that's my weird obsession. Last night, we were out doing some back-to-school shopping, and some stores actually had winter coats coming out on the racks. Yikes! I know! I don't even want to think about winter, but a very small part of me was starting to feel those first tingles of excitement about the upcoming shopping expeditions I would get to have...
Well, I guess every woman's gotta have a vice...