This time of year is known in our family as The Worst Month of the Year. Winter has settled in and we begin to reminisce about the soggy, rotten, dog poo grass that is lurking underneath the hundred feet of snow. We have only been trapped at our house once this year so that has been fairly good.
During The Worst Month of the Year, we try to keep ourselves busy to avoid the long winter twilight depression that invariable will hit. Saturdays are usually filled with chores, grocery shopping and dance classes for the kids, that are, unfortunately, five hours apart. One day, maybe the classes will be only two or three hours apart, rather than a whole day. I miss it when they were babies and loved to just be held and passed around and I didn't have to drive everywhere and have snacks in my purse.
How do you know if it is The Worst Month of the Year?
There are a few signs that the universe will give you so you will know that a month is just not a bad month, but The Worst Month. For one, it will snow endlessly for days on end. Then, when the snow stops, the temperature will abruptly drop to -30 C. Two days later, it will warm up to -5 C and you will think that it is a lovely day to finally go outside and play in the snow but at soon as you leave the house, the wind picks up and it scours the skin off your faces leaving everyone wind-burned and chapped.
But snow is fun, right?
Then, after you work really hard at getting all of your assignments for graduate school in on time, (and your columns filed reasonably close to deadline), you get sick and all of your careful planning goes out the window with your ambitious cleaning schedule. If you were honest with yourself, the cleaning schedule was never going to work anyway but it is nice to have goals. The remainder of The Worst Month will be trying to stay up past 8:30 p.m. and actually finish your homework without being lured by the siren call of new Netflix shows.
So here we are, grumpy, sad and a little bit mean and feeling (not a little bit) sorry for myself and my phone buzzes: Netflix is letting me know there is a new show out and I feel like the universe is laughing at me. "New show for Megan & Willie: Everything Sucks!"
I mean, come on. I'm ready for March.
