Cabin fever really gets to me. I have never been a fan of winter to begin with, at least not the cold part of winter that follows the holidays. I think I would be happiest if it would stay about 60-70 degrees out year round, sadly I don’t think a place like that exists, or I’d have already found a way to move there.

I know nowadays not many people know the joys of standing around at a cold bus stop, or trying to push a stroller through the snow, but that’s what it takes to get anywhere around here. This town is also very hilly, and sometimes I worry about a runaway stroller like in the old black and white movies if I don’t hang on tight enough.

I’ve heard stories about how winters used to be. I remember some pretty wild winters back when I was a kid, with blizzards with snow drifts as high as the second story. I remember seeing our white German shepherd jump off the porch to go potty, and my dad having a devil of a time finding her to dig her out of where the snow had swallowed her.

I remember the first year my oldest daughter and I moved back into the little cottage and that blizzard hit. We were quite literally snowed into our single story house, and seeing as someone had stolen my shovel, I had to dig us out with a koolaid pitcher, and trudge through hip deep snow to the neighbors house to borrow one.

Why are hard times so much harder to get over in the winter? Is it because we are stuck inside most of the time, and it’s so much harder to get out and take a simple walk to clear your mind? People stay close to home, and it’s hard to make friends, or find anyone to talk to.

It would be nice to find something to do here, and places to go. It would be nice to have friends I could talk to somewhere every day other than on a computer screen. It’s hard to start over somewhere where you don’t know anyone, when making new friends has never been your strong suit to begin with.

I do spend plenty of time with my little tye-dyed ball of sunshine, but I know John and I both could really use more adults to talk to than each other. I really long for the days when saying hi to someone got you more than a suspicious glare. It didn’t used to be like this. Sometimes I still wish the world hadn’t changed so much.