Spring

I don't know if it's my favorite season, but I sure love spring. After a long, harsh winter there are few things more wonderful than seeing the first buds on the trees, the first grass-cutting, the first Chaco-wearing days of the year.

Spring is a fresh start. It's a beautiful taste of hope. It's a reminder of God's promise that He will make all things new.

I had a harsh life-winter that began in May. When I say "this summer," I generally mean the time between graduation in May and when I moved back to Baptist Country in January. "This summer" is synonymous with "life winter"--the harsh season that makes you wonder if spring will ever come again.

I grew up on the Great Lakes region. We start getting snow around Thanksgiving and it doesn't usually stop until March. A white Christmas is expected. A white Easter is not unusual. After being buried in white nastiness for five months out of the year, you do begin to truly wonder if you'll ever be able to leave your house without a parka, ear muffins, and gloves. You dream about days when your first appointment of the day is not with the snow blower. You stop praying for snow days after spring break.

Harsh winters make spring all the more enjoyable. Suddenly the temperature reaches 50 and people are outside in shorts and t-shirts. The smell of spring makes everyone crave hamburgers. People realize walking to the mailbox will not result in frostbite.

Spring.

Hope.

Around here, the same time when the temperature soared to above freezing, I went inside to a new job. I'm still a freelance writer but this job involves showing up for work four or five days a week. I don't love my alarm going off every morning, but I do love my job. We laugh, we tease, we eat Reese's peanut butter cups with smiley faces.

The work is within my qualifications, the pay more than I was making before, the people great, and the company ideal.

Spring.

Hope.

I declared 2012 the year of hope, and by February I was pretty sure I had used up my annual quota.

Then the flowers started to bud, the snowmen began to melt, and the temperature rose. Hope was restored.

What is spring bringing for you?

<>< Katie

Spring Break-ing

You know you're an out-of-state college student when you're hardly off the plane before being handed a list of appointments and interviews that fill your spring break. That's ok because once you wrestle with your two sisters for the one car you know these roads and can get to your destination without the GPS (named Goopus... it's "GPS" and "Doofus" combined). In fact, you know where the lanes end, the speed limit changes, and where the police officers hide.

One thing my family does together is watch House, MD. Dad and I started it, but my sisters have jumped on the bandwagon. I don't have time to watch during the semester, so I hadn't seen any episodes since I was home at Christmastime. One of the episodes we watched this week involved a woman who blogged literally everything. Even I'm not that bad! See, look. This is me sparing you every intricate detail of my spring break and summarizing it in ten highlights. (I'd also like to note that I don't actually post my blogs at 6:48am or whatever. I schedule their publication, so don't tell me my sleeping habits have changed so I can blog at 6am or something crazy like that...)

1. First and foremost, the term "spring break" is not at all what I have experienced. It's not a "break" when the first day you get to sleep in is the day before you go back.  It's not "spring" when you wake up that day to find three inches of snow on the ground. Don't get me wrong, we had some nice warm days, but silly me, I thought in spring the warm days were supposed to follow the snow not precede it.

2. Seeing my sister's college and eating the only pancakes and pasta for four days. The only person brave enough to venture from this strict diet found herself at urgent care with food poisoning. Oops.

3. Drinking ancient champagne with Christian in the church copy room. Don't worry, April was there, too.*

4. Some of our windows need to be replaced, so we're restaining the hardwood floor first... "if you give a mouse a cookie" style.

5. My first trip to the dentist in five years. It's really not that I have dentist-phobia but rather my mother has phone-call-making-phobia. I think it's a genetic condition.

6.Driving through the morning rush hour traffic for an internship interview at a downtown coffee shop.  However, it was an incredibly interesting, informative interview. The first of three that day.

7.My first pedicure ever. Enough said.

8. Translating at the food pantry and soup kitchen. A hard of hearing Hispanic woman told me (in English) that the first time she heard her family speaking Spanish she told them they sounded like a bunch of chickens. Love it!

9. Remembering that I live in a house where refrigerated black olives are guarded by rotten tomatoes and sometimes the toilet paper pukes cat food. Don't ask unless you really want to know!

10. Last but definitely not least was having the opportunity to read for fun! Gasp! What's that? Book review coming soon.

How was your break?
<>< Katie

* Christian's the pastor of an ancient inner-city church; April is his wife. No one knows where this champagne came from nor how old it is, so, no, we didn't actually drink it.

Brrrrr

Disclaimer: I don't think all of my reading audience will be able to fully grasp this blog. It's not that it's difficult to comprehend but rather if you haven't spent the better part of three (or sometimes four) months with single-digit temperatures and your brown grass is completely hidden by multiple inches (or feet) of snow, you might not fully be able to grasp this concept. However, I encourage you to try and fully understand the idea of cabin fever.

"I'm cold."
A quick glance around my room will make it obvious that I've said this once or twice before. The space heater, the (literally) seven layers on my bed, and the polar fleece blanket stored right next to my desk for easy access are clear give-aways to my latest refrain.

"I'm cold."
Except today it's different. Today it isn't a "When did I move to Antarctica?" cold. Rather, today was an "It's too early and chilly to open the windows but I'm doing it anyway because it's wonderful!" cold.

There's nothing like a warm day in the middle of a harsh winter. The warm day brings hope. It brings the reminder than someday this frigid winter will pass and spring will come.

Life is like that, too. Glimmers of hope amidst dark days. Reminders of why we crawl out of bed. Can you find your warm day?

It doesn't have to be life-shattering. In fact, in the dead of winter, a 50 degree day feels warm enough to take off your jacket and don your shorts. Sure, six months from now it won't feel phenomenal but six months from now isn't when you'll need hope of spring. It's right now that you need hope of spring and therefore 50 is simply blissful!

Find your warm day today!

<>< Katie