EtsyBloggers: February Blog Carnival

These are tough questions to choose from.   1) Next week is Valentines! We have already had a "love" theme, so Tell us about your favorite "romantic" book or movie and what you like about it.   2) We are also in the middle of winter! Write something about you/your family's winter experiences. 

As most my readers know, I'm not exactly a Valentine's Day fan.  But I LOVE winter. I know, I know, I'm weird. But maybe it's because I was born the day a blizzard started. Every birthday, which is February 10, I hear about how my father had to walk to K-Mart to get me formula because the cars couldn't get out. How there was 14 inches of snow...But it wouldn't be my birthday without that story. 

As I got older, I just had to be outside from dawn to dusk in the snow. My mom would have to drag me in. Oftentimes, it was a compromise to go in only to get the Pink Baby Magic lotion on my face and to change into dry clothes and new suit and back outside.  I wore out snowsuits, chapped my cheeks, lips, nose, you name it. I just loved playing in the snow. I'd make shelters, snowmen, angels, pretend I was stranded in a snow storm and would never get home. When I got bored and couldn't think of anything else to make up or over dramatize, I'd start to shovel driveways. In the short span of houses that I could wander to by myself, they were all elderly. So after I shoveled our driveway, I'd move on to the neighbors, then their neighbors and keep going as far as I was allowed. I was not even 10. 

But there was no way I was going inside! I remember one time one of the neighbors gave me a giant Mr. Goodbar. I was just dumbfounded. I was just having fun. I sound a lot like Forest Gump when he cut the grass. But anyway, I was the Forest Gump of our street. I just liked shoveling. Til the day I moved out of my parents home, I did the shoveling. When I'd visit from out of town, I still did the shoveling. There is a science and an art to it and feel I've perfected. It all depends on the snow type and how much has fallen or is falling. I NEVER wait til the snow is done. Living in an apartment has taken away that fun chore of mine. It's such a productive chore. There are times I want to tell the maintenance guy, no, you're not doing it right, but I don't. He must learn like I did. One day he'll get his Mr. Goodbar, but he's not ready yet.