I completely relate to this picture.

I completely relate to this picture.

Southerners are soft folks…soft spoken, soft-hearted and most of all, soft on long cold winters.   We do not weather the weather well.   While our more Southern friends in warmer climes and those from colder places scoff at us for stopping the whole world for a week, over snowy roads on a neighborhood street, we groan about how we couldn’t travel 1/4 mile to the nearest cleared path of travel over 2″ of the white stuff.

Our teachers encourage things like ‘the snow dance’ and both children have spent time outside in their pajamas doing a dance very well memorized and considered, in order to bring on any impending flakes.   We spend 15 minutes getting dressed, and 5 minutes outdoors, to finally decide most of the time is best spent coming up with our best southern recipes to try out in the kitchen to share on Facebook as we eat our way through our isolation from the cleared main roads.

So we look towards an additional 4 days inside for yet another ever-changing forecast.  We watch the Internet and TV intently instead of looking out the window for our up to the minute weather updates.   We rearrange yet another week’s worth of client appointments and our sweet southern crocus and daffodils that typically are peeking out about this time in Feb. are smartly hidden under our version of the Permafrost.    Enjoy your casseroles and soups, venture out just far enough to share with your neighbors, and count the days until we can yet again complain about it being as low as 50 degrees.    Happy Valentine’s Day and remember, Virginia is For Lovers, not Snow Lovers.