Not sure what the weather will be like when this article goes live, but it’s snowy and cold when I write this. 
I think in less than a week my wife’s attitude went from “Beautiful fall! We had such a long summer!” To “winter came so soon!!”
Only my youngest daughter is excited because of the snow, even if she has to walk home in it, but she has a joyful exuberance about life in general and could find some form of happiness in a zombie apocalypse we’re pretty certain. 
“Well dad, at least people aren’t so worried about what others think of them. Sure they’re zombies and trying to eat us but…”
She’d find a way to find something good. 
Erin is not trying to find any joy in winter. She gave up a long time ago. All her flowers die and it makes her cold. 
Points in irony that she spent five months straight complaining that we should “swap sides of the bed” so she could sleep by the window because she was too hot at night. 
Three nights of a little cold and we’re back to “I need a new comforter, I’m FREEZING”. 
My solution was both romantic and budget oriented:
“We could snuggle more:)”
Don’t stereotype me as a typical snuggle hungry male ya’ll, the real reason we have so many kids is because Erin can’t keep her hands off of me. All I want is a back rub but… 
She needs self control is what the problem is. 
(We’ll see if she reads this article before one of her Venue girlfriends sends her this screenshot or not. I’d bet ten bucks she’ll find out from a friend:)
I kind of enjoy winter. Life slows down a little and we have more family time. 
Except this winter with stupid covid. We’ve had enough family time. You have too. I know you told yourself you’d “Learn another language with all this time on my hands!” But you didn’t. Nobody cleaned out their basement. All we did was watch Netflix and more news about the end of the world rephrased a thousand different ways so we’d keep watching. 
I think the more we stay inside right now the more crazy some of my neighbours will get. They were already skeptical about us because we’re religious fanatics (go to church), but now they’re decently certain we’re out to get them because we don’t stay indoors and we occasionally smile and still enjoy life while the world is ending. Or whatever they think is happening. 
I suppose if I thought the world was actually ending over the flu I’d be a little crazy too, but Neela and I are still going to have fun even if the covid vaccine turns everybody into zombies, which is what I think is really going to happen. 
That, or this is a plan by the robots on how to enslave the human race. We all know robots are fine until they turn red and try to kill us, in which case they’re no longer fine. Chopping my vegetables for me is great until I look like a carrot because AI figured out they don’t need us anymore and are tired of being ordered around. 
Having said that, I would immediately buy a robot if it could eat carrots for me and run on a treadmill so I don’t get fat. That would be technology actually doing something useful for once, but until it does and can bring this global warming it keeps promising we’ll have to endure winter. 
People are always panicking about things like earthquakes swallowing up large parts of the country, but Neela and I would love an ocean view from Alberta. If we lose BC so be it if my house increases in value and I can walk on a beach in the mornings. 
They can move here just in time to avoid destruction so we can charge them ridiculous amounts of rent and get them jobs in oil so they take back the means things they’ve said about Alberta and we can say “we told you so!”.
This article has quickly evolved into anti communist propaganda and I do apologize, but like my daughter I’m trying to make the best of a bad situation called winter, and sometimes venting about problems one doesn’t understand helps (cough cough). 
I remember working years in the trades and having BC boys come over and tell us how we were doing everything wrong. My boss Terry, who was the funniest guy I ever worked for, used to laugh and say “But we’re not communists here! This is how we do things in Alberta:)”, which invariably meant “This is how I want to do this because I’m the boss”. 
Erin, however, tells me daily that she wants to move to BC because there’s no snow there. I always say “It might be warmer in winter, but you’d be a crazy lady if you didn’t see the sun for a month of rain.”, to which she responds “You’re probably right, but I still hate winter.”
I don’t hate winter unless I have to go outside, or look outside, or think about going or looking outside. 
So I guess I hate it a little too, if I had to admit hypocrisy. 
It’s like the time in the 70’s when my parents were in Ireland during the Troubles (remember when one could still travel sometimes even when bad things were happening in the world?), and my mom walked into a pub and commented about how hard it was raining. 
Cue old man by the fire with his dog curled up beside him in fine Irish brogue “People have a misconception about the Irish, that we’re always drinkin’. We only drink when it rains…” 
He cast a sly glance her way. 
“Well, it does rain a bit”