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The winter of my discontent

I picked the wrong year to trade in my solid-drive-through-any-snowstorm safely minivan for a cute Mini Cooper! The snowbanks at most intersections are taller than my car and it's so light that it doesn't hold the road like the van when gusts are blowing and it's icy. 

But heck, spring is only 30-something days away and then on that first 50+ degree day, I'm opening the sunroof and turning up the awesome stereo and going for a drive. It can be a long drive too, because the gas mileage is awesome!

But we have to get there first and on some days it just doesn't feel like this winter will end. The snow keeps coming (we've had about 127" so far this season way above the average of 70"). For many days in a row it's been cloudy but today it's sunny and it is beautiful to see the snow glisten. There were three days in a row that I didn't leave the house - partly because we were advised to stay off the roads and partly because I didn't dare attempt an excursion in my cute little car. And then there's the walking around when sidewalks or parking lots are icy - for a woman not normally stable on her feet and using a cane, it could likely be the scariest 50 feet ever traversed!

I am not alone in my discontent this season, this I know. Many of us are left to wonder if we have Seasonal Affected Disorder (is there a more appropriate acronym that S.A.D.?). Or it could simply be the severity of this winter and the small number of days without snow or cloud cover. I know my mood is also affected by having a son on the other side of the world until May and having my baby knocking on the nests door ready to fly off to college in the fall. Also its affected by the home being constructed on the lot behind ours where trees and wildlife used to exist. Now it's just mounds of hardened dirt and construction equipment. Yet that seems to only be part of the discontent. As the title of the blog reflects, I am a positive thinker - just this side of Pollyanna, in fact. But I think even dear Polly would have a challenge coming up with positives about this dreary, snowy winter.

Yet, I cannot end this edition on such a bleak tone. I am calling on all my positiveness to end on a sunnier note; a robin was sitting on the tree outside my window this morning. That bird and I stared at one another until Wally, ever the watchdog, spotted that bird and began to bark scaring the robin away. I think that bird came back a little early and might be booking the next flight back to more livable climates, but it was a sign that spring is just around a very snowy corner. I can't see it because my car is too short, but I have faith and know that it's there!!!

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It's not a popularity contest, but ...

When an ass is so much more

  Body image. Body positivity.  Or about coming to an appreciation for a previously much maligned back end.  In junior high (that's middle school for all of you non boomers), I was given the nickname "big butt Bowen". It was a nickname that stung because I did indeed have a large ass. I tried to mask it, a difficult endeavor since the current fashion (and remember this is junior high when fitting in was paramount) was wearing hip hugger jeans with midriff tops and my disguise of choice were peasant blouses or dresses. That style choice earned an additional nickname, Mama Cass. For those of you that don't know who Mama Cass was, she was part of the Mamas and Papas and known for her beautiful voice but also for her large body.  All about Mama Cass I was cruelly nicknamed at a time when nicknames can really mess with a girl's psyche. And I spent a lifetime as that girl with the messed up psyche. I'm sure there are more than one of you out there that can relate. B

Peter Pan no more

                          It's time. Peter Pan had to grow up.  For nearly 18 months of his life, Matthew dressed in this costume. In this picture it's new, just out of the box. He picked the costume out of a catalog and when it arrived, two weeks prior to Halloween, he asked daily if today was the day he could finally wear his Peter Pan costume. He didn't like the hat and only wore it on Halloween, but the rest of the costume he wore daily! You read that correctly - DAILY. He wore it to Meijer (for those of you unfamiliar with Meijer, it's a cleaner, friendlier, more 'upscale' version of WalMart), to church, to play dates and preschool ... Heck, he was three and adorable and it worked for him!  (Yes you read that correctly, he even wore it to church on one or two occasions when it seemed arguing with a three year old about not wearing a costume to church was not a battle worth waging. He once mentioned the priests wore dresses . . . I don't think Joh

Cabin fever made me do it!

Like nearly ever person in West Michigan, I have a serious case of cabin fever.  I won't waste your time however, complaining about the two-hundred feet of snow that's fallen in the last two hours. I won't share about the twenty or thirty times I've had to shovel my walk today as gusts blew it right back in my face. And I certainly will not lament about the temperatures that hover around negative double digits making your nostrils freeze together within moments of stepping outside. To bore you with tales of how we have to shovel areas in our yard so that our large dog and can do his 'duty' because the snow is deeper than he is tall and dogs for whatever reason cannot poop in the same place twice, is not what I will share. You will not hear about how when I open the slider to let aforementioned dog outside, gusts of wind blow drifts of snow inside and require a shovel to once again close the door.  Nor will I share how some roads around here are drifted shut be