Every winter it happens. After five months of being stuck inside because of bitter cold and icy, snowy weather, things can start to take a dark turn. You may find even the tiniest things start to grate on your nerves. You may find Angelina Jolie’s smirk and ridiculous leg-to-the-side stance at the Oscars has you steaming mad enough to throw the remote through the HDTV screen. You may find that you are one step away from going out for walk, then hitching a ride to the airport so you can buy a one way ticket to Aruba, which is $468 on JetBlue departing Portland Feb. 29th at 12:15 pm. You may even find yourself taking that precarious detour down the road of no return where hatchet meets the bathroom door and “Here’s Johnny!” becomes your battle cry.
I am a born-n-raised Mainer, so I understand your plight. I get what happens to your normally mild-mannered mind. I can help you.
So please, put the hatchet down and we’ll get through this together. Here’s a few things that might enable you to survive until that heavenly day when it’s warmer than 50 degrees, the birds are chirping a glorious tune, the leaves are finally budding on the trees and you can finally retire the snowblower (around July 4th here in Maine).
*Get Exercise. Can’t afford a treadmill? Don’t want to go outside for a walk and some fresh air so you can guess how many seconds it will take for your eyeballs to freeze solid? I’ve got a plan that will not only give you a healthy dose of adrenaline and keep you warm, but will entertain you, your family and friends for years to come. First, strip down to your birthday suit. (Leave your sneakers on, we don’t want to run the risk of injury) Next, make a mad dash outside and run in circles, waving your arms in the air and screaming, “Freedom!”–either around your house so the neighbors can get a good view or preferably down the road so that you have a better chance of outrunning the cops.
*Get a Change of Scenery. After being arrested, refuse the posted bail and your one phone call home. Just let your cares fade away as you slip into the cozy orange jumpsuit and sit back to enjoy your new digs.. Soon you’ll be led into an 8 by 8 cement cell with one tiny window and a toilet. Sit down and the freedom will begin to wash over you like Niagara Falls; the memory of being cooped up inside a house with two little kids and your half-delirious husband a distant memory.
*Engage your mind. Finally start and finish that 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle of two polar bears playing volleyball while eating vanilla ice cream and drinking milk during a blizzard.
*Pretend to be your cat. Face it, no one can do ‘mildy annoyed and completely self-absorbed’ better than your cat. Yet they’re always content, even during the winter. Almost like they don’t give a crap about anything. Take their lead. Find the nearest sunspot, shove the cat over and lay down to curl up in a ball. Ahhhhh…see, it’s okay, really! You’ll be just fine here. I promise. Remember the sun? Yeah, soak it up….let it warm you, let its magical rays and vitamin D recharge you. Then spend the rest of the day in that exact spot, only moving to scratch yourself occasionally. Summer will be here before you know it. Although the cat will have hitched a plane to Aruba.
*Play a game. Take a swig of wine (or NyQuil if need be) every time you hear the endless loop of the following whines: “I’m bored….” “There’s nuthin’ to do…!” or “Me no likey snow anymore! I just want to die! Please just put me out in the field and let me freeze to death so I can finally escape this frozen hell on earth…” Then apologize to your husband and kids for all of your constant complaining. Then take another swig. Repeat ad nauseam.
*Write a Book If you’re fresh out of ideas for something original, rewrite a book, such as any of the Twilight series. This time make it with less vampires and more actual interesting words to read. Please. Do it for me.
*Practice your math skills. Come up with a new theory that explains how many nanoseconds it takes before you reach that point of spontaneous Mommy Combustion. So far I’ve got:
M X (number of hours in a day) X+Y + pi
2x 300mg. = Mommy Meltdown
M=Mom x=kids X=Number of extra strength Advil geltabs Y= number of hours left in the day pi= slices of pie she can consume while hiding in the pantry
And if any of these suggestions don’t work, just wait a few months. The weather is bound to change eventually.
She's A Maineiac 
But not this winter … no excuses for going to the pokey because it’s been down-right toasty up there!
You’re right. It hasn’t been as bad as usual, but today it’s still only 30 with a good wind chill of mid-twenties so I am still officially ready for it to be over now.
i wanted to throw the remote at angelina jolie’s leg display too! but i didn’t. the cabin fever must not have set in yet. stay sane in Maine!
Oh, good, someone else saw the same Angelina thing and knows what I’m talking about. I’m not sure why, but I just couldn’t watch the Oscars anymore after that.
Saw it and gritted my teeth, too! I was waiting for someone to stick their leg out and trip her!
🙂 MJ
Did you see the trio of recipients (don’t know what category) who imitated her? It was brilliant.
didn’t .. but will Google it 🙂 I need the chuckle! Thanks buddy!
I did see that, Elyse. It was hilarious. Then poor Angelina had to stand off stage after she was mocked and present another award. That made the awards worth watching for me.
Ok, now I wish I would have watched! I feel so dang left out! Not.
And I’m super sorry to you all but Spring and Summer means SERIOUS work and super long days for us…We’re enjoying our “down” time immensely! I’ll wish for Spring/Summer for the rest of you knowing full well it will get here when it darn well pleases! 😉
Hang in there – everyone!
~d.
Oh no, you didn’t miss much. I don’t know why I stayed up past my bedtime (8 pm) to watch it but I always do. It was pretty boring overall.
My, you are having a tough winter!
Margie, I’m not sure if it’s the winter or the fact that I just came off a school vacation week stuck at home with no car.
I find Angelina’s smirk annoying even though, since it was over 50 degrees here yesterday, I got out for a walk in actual sunshine (ducking quick so the remote doesn’t catch me upside the head.)
These are all excellent suggestions for coping with your incarceration. Just watch out for those hairballs.
50 degrees would seem like a dream to me. It’s been bitter cold here all weekend. I slipped and fell on the ice this morning in our driveway so now my butt hurts AND it’s still winter. Just fabulous.
I’m not sure my post had any useful suggestions…it’s more just a pathetic little cry for help.
BTW, when I first saw your post, quickly, I thought it said “practice your mEth skills.” I wasn’t sure how to respond to that because, you know, that would be a BAD winter hobby. But you’re pushing mAth, not mEth, so it’s all good.
You know, I’m not so sure math is much better than meth.
I’m so glad I missed Angelina’s legs. Anything tan makes me angry.
Hope you’re surviving in points west. I was almost happy this morning when I found the yard frozen solid again (a little better than mud, right) but then I realized I was wrong. I will take mud and warmth over frozen solid ground. Only thing bearable is the chicken’s poo is frozen too, so no smell. Gotta think POSITIVELY! 🙂
Anything tan makes me angry. Ha ha!
Well, as they say up here in Maine, if your chicken poo is frozen, it’s a great day.
Hi,
While I was reading your post, and having a bit of a smile, I am sitting in front of a fan, in shorts and sleeveless top. 🙂
Our temp at the moment and for the rest of the week is 30 degrees Celsius or 86 degrees Fahrenheit. Yes still in summer, which is coming to an end, the 1st of March is the start of Autumn.
I love fall too, Mags. It’s my favorite season. Enjoy those last days of summer, you lucky, lucky woman!
Highs around 58 F here in northern California all week. It was high 70’s past Saturday.
I feel for you D-Woww, it’s why we moved this way. I have to have sunshine. Maybe one of those full-spectrum lamps would help:
http://www.amazon.com/Bell-Howell-Sunlight-Floor-Lamp/dp/B000RWPY98/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330379588&sr=8-1
But you Maineiacs are a tough lot, and can handle anything from logging, to chapstick by the box. Hope spring comes soon for you my friend.
Thanks, MJ. You always manage to cheer me up. The logging/chapstick thing had me laughing. There is nothing I enjoy more than those two things. Maine is the place to be.
This is hilarious! I wouldn’t get too fond of those orange jumpsuits! Hahaha! I remember long winters when my kids were young. Now every day zooms by!
Hang in there. The days are getting longer…
Maybe this comment will stick..My last one might have ended up in the dreaded spam file….
My sanity usually lasts up until March. Then when I notice spring is coming, I get very impatient because I know in Maine, spring isn’t until May. But I tell myself my kids won’t be young forever so I try to enjoy it as much as I can (and do lots of jigsaw puzzles)
Hope spring comes soon for you before you lose it altogether!
You and me both, Susan. It’s not as bad as last year. We only have a few inches of ice on the ground.
The closer it gets to spring, the harder it is for me to wait for it. Your post was hysterical, by the way. Mi forgot to tell you that. I love your sense of humor.
You get me, you really, really get me. (thank god someone does!) and thank you. I am very anxious this year to start up my garden so it’s not helping that we’re getting a big snowstorm this Thursday.
Angelina’s leg pose was stupid. I can’t stand her. And she’s ugly. (If I say it enough, it becomes true).
I’ve resisted reading the Twilight series because of all the vampires. If you or any of your readers write one with “less vampires,” I’ll read it in a heartbeat.
When she did that pose, I first thought, okaaaay…maybe she injured her leg or something. Then she kept doing it so I thought…okaaay…maybe this is some kind of clever elaborate inside joke she has with Brad Pitt. But no, she was just showing the world how fantabulous she thinks she is. The guys that came up after her nailed it with their imitation though, so all was forgiven.
I just hope she knows those guys were mocking her. She probably read it as “oh, my leg pose is totally catching on already.”
The key to that whole cat thing is, as you say, to not give a crap about anything. Oh, and to find someone to feed you… and clean your litter box.
Now that would be living the life. The older I get, the less I do give a crap about anything, Steve. See, there’s some benefits to being my age. Actually that’s the biggest one.
1. Angelina’s leg pose was terrible. I couldn’t tell if she was joking or not and my brain nearly exploded trying to figure out why a “joke” like that would even be funny in the first place. The guys who accepted the award right after were awesome, though. At least I know THEY were joking by striking that same ridiculous pose.
2. I have a super geeky love of jigsaw puzzles but haven’t had one around in years! That polar bear/blizzard/dairy one sounds excellent. The last one I attempted was a loud-patterned, early 1990s MC Hammer puzzle (for real!) We were staying at somebody’s cabin and I was so excited to stumble upon that gem… until I figured out that 20+ pieces were missing. Oh, the humanity!
Dana, I am a puzzle-geek plus I’m OCD so it’s a bad combination. Once I start a puzzle, I don’t care if it’s 1,000 pieces of two dolphins swimming in the ocean, I will finish it. I just completed one last week that was 500 pieces. I did it in 10 minutes. (okay, I lied, it took me more like a day, but still) If there was a piece missing at the end of it, that would have been it for me, just drag me away in a straight jacket.
Please put on your list: move to Central Cali! Then I can laugh in person with the most hilarious mom-blogger on the planet, and you can still sip a glass of wine, pretend to be a cat, and wear an orange suite, but you can do it on the patio outside and still be warm. It was chilly today and should freeze tonight, but by Maine’s standards we’re hot! 😉
I’ve already looked up the cheapest one way ticket. My husband and kids won’t miss me much…right? They can do the laundry and the dishes and cook and clean, right? Yeah. I’ve got some wine-sipping and cat-pretending to do, dammit.
Let me know when you arrive-today’s supposed to be in the 60’s! 🙂
You are making me cry right now. My husband found the plane ticket so the jig is up.
Don’t you think we need a good hard freeze to get rid of the bugs? And then a good hard liposuction to get rid of the winter fat? Where did this goo around my waist come from? Oh yeah…eating donuts while doing jigsaw puzzles.
You are speaking my language, sister. If only we could have a bonus liposuction every spring. It’s cruel really–we spend all winter eating donuts and doing puzzles and laying in sunspots…then our asses/thighs become gigantic. Then once the warm weather hits, we have to put on swimsuits. It’s so tragic.
If it makes you feel any better, I’m in southern California, and it hailed here today. For almost five minutes. And tomorrow it’s supposed to be a frosty 62 degrees. I probably should have stopped after the first sentence.
That depends. How big was the hail? marble-sized, golf ball-sized? Tell me it was beach ball-sized! Then I’d feel a bit better.
By the way, I may be a newbie over at your blog, but when are you writing another post? I keep checking and nothing yet. Hmm? I need some entertainment! Hurry up and write something.
The hail was the size of golf balls! Tiny, pea-sized golf balls custom-made for golfers who want to make the game more challenging.
My posting schedule is so erratic enough that I had trouble typing “posting schedule” with a straight face just now. Things have been a little busy at work, so I probably won’t have anything new up until this weekend.
I think your idea of pea-sized golf balls would add just enough pizazz to the sport to make me actually watch golf.
When did you meet my cat?
You know what’s strange is I don’t even have a cat. Another reason to kick my Nyquil habit.
I’m not wearing my glasses and your sentence blurred ‘cat’ and ‘kick’ into one that I thought you were going to kick a cat, or drug it with Nyquil. 😀
Ha! (oh, god, I feel sooo bad now for laughing but that was funny) I’m close to being completely gone, but not that far gone. I would never kick my nonexistent cat. I can’t even find my glasses this morning because I can’t see anything.
Always happening, I’ll need to have them on a cord around my neck but I worry I’ll look like a librarian
Nothing wrong with that. Librarians are super cool. (I almost became one myself, was enrolled into a program years ago but then realized I would have to read books so I gave it up)
I’m seeing some librarians Thursday, they better be cool!
When you start seeing librarians, that’s the first sign you need to lay off the Nyquil, Joe.
You’re ‘seeing’ a librarian or you are just seeing a librarian in the library? Either way, it’s probably cool.
What the? how did you slip that joke in there, Pegolego? No fair. Much funnier than mine.
Love it. Especially the Twilight rewrite suggestion. -kate
All of my friends love Twilight. I tried to read the first book but just couldn’t get past the first page.
Oh it is awful. I read all of them, but with copious quantities of red wine to wash them down. Vats in fact.
I could see doing that. I skipped ahead a little bit and skimmed here and there to see if it would get any better but nope.
Ha, no, it gets worse…. which is almost as good, if you are in the right mood.
I’m not sure I want to ever be in the mood though.
I was already acting like my cat, but not on purpose–that’s how bad this winter has been.
I’m not sure you ever have a bad day over there. I don’t believe it. What with the Chinglish and the street paintings to enjoy. Did you get the Golden Girls one yet, because I have the perfect spot for it.
Now that I know you have a snowstorm due on Thursday, I will be expecting a snowman entry from you, missy! I am working on the prizes (at last) and this should tempt people into submissions, snow-based or not. Of course, it has been nearly snowless here, and I’ve gotten outside to do yardwork all winter, and noticed I’m sleeping much better, but that won’t stop me from the red wine cure. Red wine cures everything. For at least a few hours, and sometimes, that’s just what the cat ordered.
Yes! Snowman it is! We are getting a good storm this time around, no ice, just snow. Just like the good ol’ days of yore. I have no doubt there will be no school either, so the kids and I can all enter the contest.
Twilight re-write. YES. And please, this time do not use the term “pursed lips”.
How dare you through math into this post. As if I wasn’t crazed enough. Thanks, Darla.
Can I use “his lips were a thin line”? or maybe “his lips pursed into a thin line?” or maybe “his lips formed a line that looked like a purse?”
That math gave me a migraine yesterday. I’m serious.
Now that’s new math I can get in to 🙂
As long as it always equals pie.
I kept waiting for Angelina to confess that she had just washed her leg and couldn’t do a thing with it. What other explanation can there possibly be? Nobody would look that ridiculous on purpose – would they? Then again, she used to wear a vial of blood around her neck, so there’s the beginning of your Twilight rewrite. Hollywood vampires take over the Oscars.
True, so in a way this wackadoodle leg thing was just her way of toning things down a little.
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Hilarious! I’m a Minnesota transplanted to Florida–do I need to say anymore?
On a side note–I could be in the greatest mood ever over possibly winning the lotto, and I could still go into a blind rage over Angelina Jolie’s affected posing at the Oscars!
I’ve been to Minnesota, and I can honestly say you have me beat when it comes to bad winters. Normally, Angelina’s leg trick would’ve just made me laugh but not in mid-February.
This was so perfect and relatable. How did I miss this post??? Thank you to GG for linking it yesterday. I think I have you beat by 100mg = Mommy Meltdown.
I was cranking out the posts last week, so it was hard to keep up. Thankfully, now I am down to zero posts. I’ve got nothing.
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