Spring: Pros and Cons

It is so lovely outside here today. Spring arrived in Maine two months early. I can see daffodil shoots in my side yard, and this Saturday it may even make it to 70 degrees.

But here's the thing: I'm only 50% excited about it. Maybe more than that. Sometimes I'm 100% spaztically ecstatic that the sun is shining and I can go jogging without swathing every square inch of my skin in fleece. But sometimes I secretly wish it weren't so nice outside. So, so nice. Because when it is, I don't have an excuse to be a cave dweller. Ben and I spent all afternoon at the park yesterday, and we'll do the same today. What is my problem?

1. I not-so-secretly love winter. I love wanting to be warm inside, actually wanting to turn up the heat and sit on the couch like a potato sack in flannel and not break a sweat all day.
2. I love not being social. Sometimes my other two family members and my cat are the absolute maximum of social I can handle. When it's nasty outside, everyone understands if you don't get up the gumption to socialize.
3. The warm temperatures signal the frightening unveiling of my pale, clunky legs. The winter uniform is so nice: pants, boots, coat. We all look relatively equal in that. I can barely handle personal maintenance from the neck up, and even then I can put a hat on it. Warm weather brings with it far too many responsibilities for a girl.
4. When it's really cold, it's my responsibility to eat casseroles and sticky toffee pudding. I have to, or I'll die. I am not ready to start eating salads and ceviche.
5. Today it's nice enough that I could dry my laundry on the line. I could have white sheets flapping gently in the breeze while I sit on my back porch breathing in the scent of clean laundry. Doesn't that sound pleasant? But it involves me lugging a laundry basket of wet laundry (wet, twice as heavy as dry) up my basement stairs and out the back door, balancing precariously on the edge of the deck, clothes pinning it all up, and then remembering to take it all down again. I could be saving the environment, but I just dumped it all in the dryer. Fine.

I really am happy that I can open the windows for the first time this year. I think I probably just need more coffee.