Prompted: Winter Weather

How does the cold winter weather and shorter days affect your mood or outlook on life? What if winter lasted year-round?

I have a love/hate relationship with winter.  I like being warm- once I get cold, I'm a miserable girl, and that point hits at about 70 degrees.  This problem has gotten more pronounced with weight loss, and I frequently bemoan that I want my fat back (though I'm lying, I really am).  I really do try not to be a whiner, but no holds are barred when it comes to being cold. Whining generates warmth, I'm convinced.

Even though I burn to a crisp with SPF 90 on my skin, I like the summer better as far as seasons go. The days are longer, and I can come home, spend a few hours mowing grass, get in an outdoor exercise of some sort, and STILL have time left over.  I can putter in the yard. I can sit on the back porch with a book or my phone. I can leave the doors open and let the sunlight in, and all of those things agree with me quite nicely.
But "together" time happens better in the winter.  Winter means puppy-piles with my loved ones in front of a fireplace, or watching a movie.  Winter is when I get to lie underneath my Christmas Tree and look up at the lights while my kitchen gets trashed because Aarin decided to make biegnets at 2 AM, and then there's going to be powdered sugar on the ceiling and every pot is going to be dirty.  Winter means New Years' Eve, which is my favorite holiday of the year.

Winter means it gets dark earlier, so there's adequate time for "quiet time" activities that never happen enough in the summer. Sewing, or reading a book. Watching a movie after work because it's too dark to be out in the yard being useful.  It is easier to get depressed or down in the winter, but it's also easier to deal with that because everybody else is bored, too, so finding company in a friend who can alleviate those symptoms (or even just listen to them) is easier.  Phone lines seem shorter when it's darker and drearier. 


Winter is a time for introspection, for quiet pondering, for being thoughtful and getting your beauty sleep.  Summer is for doing, for being more active, for fireworks, for grilling.  Both are necessary, both are good, and I don't think I'd want either of them to last all year long.


And man, I'm kind of ready for Summer to get here already.


*And no, I didn't bother mentioning Autumn or Spring because.... really, this is the South. It's not like they exist.