It's Not Bad Weather...

...it's just "challenging." This is what I read on Fiona's blog the other day and I really loved it. I love the midwest in the summer, but there are times I hate it because of its bad weather. Like how you have to enjoy being outside because you can only do it three months of the year. But if I look at it as challenging weather I can still go out in, most of the year opens right up! Really there are just a few weeks in the summer when it's too hot, and a couple weeks in the winter when it's super cold and you'll get frostbite just looking out your window. The rest of the year may be chilly or warm or rainy or sunny, but you can go out in it. This has changed my whole outlook on life in the midwest!

I used to look at rainy days and sigh. Dreary days put me in a dreary mood. They meant staying in and getting bored or being lazy. But the other day, for example, it was rainy all day long, but the dog still needed to go out. So we put on our rain coats and walked over to the dog park. Cody chased his ball, Ingrid splashed in puddles, and we survived. We dried off when we got home, changed our jeans, and had a snack. It's possible to have fun in the rain, who knew??

Today it looks dreary but Ingrid and I had to go back down by the lake to look for Cody's missing collar. Sometime during yesterday's walk he got tangled in a tree and it came off. So, no matter what the weather was, we had to go down there to find it. Coats on, stroller ready, dog on leash, and off we went. It was chilly and damp, but not rainy, and Ingrid and I had a great time. Cody got to run, we found the leash, and we got to enjoy a really super fall day with no one else around.

This is one of the things I've heard others talk about: if you go out during "challenging" weather, no one else will be there and you'll get the whole great outdoors all to yourselves! Fiona took the girls to the zoo--no one there, unlike a hot summer day where there are tons of small people running all over, and the hot sun making everyone cranky. Sarah has written about going to the park on a rainy day and her girls having the whole park to themselves. How wonderful!

Little shifts in my perspective have helped me be happy in my situation instead of longing to be somewhere else. It's a problem I've had my whole life--wanting to be somewhere else. It's usually been centered on the weather, too. "It gets too cold here, I hate it here. It's too rainy, I hate it here. I want sunny days, I hate it here." While I DO hate winter and snow, and the midwest still isn't my ideal living situation, I am here, and I have to make the best of it. Now that I can look outside and still find the ability to go outside and do things no matter what the weather, it's made it that much easier to live here. For now. I still would like to live by mountains. One thing at a time, huh?