I’ve always had a hard time choosing my favorite season. I love to watch a good snowfall in the Winter, but that fluffy stuff has a way of piling up and melting into dirty slush and freezing into a solid mass on the roads and my car windows. At that point, I just get annoyed. Plus, I’ve always been a pretty cold-blooded person (insert lame joke here). Once I get cold, I have a hard time getting warm again. My husband makes fun of me bundling up in wool socks and layers of flannel pajama pants and sweatshirts before I get in bed at night, but there are very few things in this world that I hate more than cold bedsheets.
I’ve always loved the beauty of the Spring. I love watching the world wake up after the long winter’s slumber. Birds sing. Flowers bloom. The days grow longer and the world is green and vibrant again. It’s just about the time that the prettiest flowers start blossoming that my sinuses revolt and close up tighter than a Venus Flytrap. There’s nothing sexier than a girl whose face is perpetually damp from the steady flow of liquid draining from both eyes and nostrils. Add a layer of redness to the nose, a couple of bloodshot eyes and a whole lot of phlegm and I start looking like one of the animated corpses from the new A&E show The Walking Dead. Luckily, there are some damn good allergy medications available over the counter these days, because if I actually had to go see a doctor to get a prescription for the stuff, I would just lock myself in a small room with a two-month supply of food and an air purifier and hibernate.
Of course Summer is always a great season, or at least it was when I was younger. School was out. The pool was open. The days were long and endless. Summer meant vacations and barbecues and sunbathing in the backyard with a good book or a pen and paper trying to write my own. These days, summer has lost a bit of its lustre. Now that I am no longer a student, summer no longer heralds a welcome break from that little thing called responsibility. Plus, these days I no longer have the body (nor the naive youthful self-confidence) to run around in a pair of shorts and a bikini top which is really the only attire that keeps you from sweating to death in the humid summer heat.
When it comes right down to it, Fall is, hands down, my favorite season. I mean really, what’s not to like? The humidity and oppressive heat of the summer is gone, but it’s not yet cold enough to refuse to leave the house without first putting on every last article of clothing you own. The deceptively beautiful allergy-inducing fauna that ravaged my sinuses months earlier have shed their vibrant Spring attire and slipped into their bold-colored evening wear, trading the pale pastels and bright neon colors for the much deeper earth and jewel tones that I have always found much more beautiful. Fall means going back to school with a renewed lust for learning (or at least that’s how it always was for me because, in the end, I’m a bit of a nerd). Fall means football and tailgating and big batches of thick, hearty stews. Fall means savoring that steaming cup of coffee or cocoa and throwing on a sweater to cut the chill in the air. Fall means celebrating two of the best holidays of the year–Thanksgiving with the family all the homecooked food, and Halloween with the scary movies and the costumes and all the candy. Who doesn’t like Halloween candy?
I spent the final week of my summer this year visiting my family in Arizona and shooting my sister Kassie’s engagement photos. It has been one of the longest, hottest summers on record there, and Cadence and I caught the tail end of it during our trip. With temperatures still in the 100’s during the day and only cooling off to the 90’s overnight, I pretty much spent the entire 10 day trip covered in a thin layer of sweat.
Funny how Steven and I left Arizona less than a year ago, but I’d already forgotten about that summer heat! The natives always say, “But, it’s a dry heat” as if the lack of humidity actually matters when the temperatures climb into the 120’s. Dry or not, hot is hot. If you can mix up a pan of brownies, leave it in your car in the morning, check back at noon and find that they have cooked through, then it’s too damn hot. End of story.
Arriving back in Nebraska, Cadence and I were greeted by temperatures in the 60’s and 70’s. Our windows are open. Our air conditioner has officially been retired for the season. And yesterday I even spent the day wearing one of my favorite Truman High School baseball hoodies around the house. And just in case we we needed an official sign that Fall has arrived here in Nebraska, our friends over at Mars, Inc. sent out an official notice with some delicious Fall-colored candy.
Tonight’s 365 Project entry is dedicated to all the things we love (and hate) about the seasons. Which is your favorite?
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Lori Romano 