I Have Acclimated!

I had lived for over 50 years of my life in the Midwest climate that I had a love/hate relationship with. When you are a child the change of seasons were wonderful. I would play outside in the cold and snow until I could not feel my fingers and toes. I remember coming into the house, taking off all of my snow gear (which included socks under my mittens), and stood on the registers in the floor of our living room until I could feel my fingers and toes again. This hopefully was on a day that we had off of school because of the weather.

As I got older there was no fun in the brutal cold weather and the mounds of snow. The skies were gray at least half of the year, you hated to drive in the snow and ice, the bitter cold made you want to hibernate, the Spring offered storms and tornadoes, and the Summer was humid. In the Spring when temperatures hit the high 60s we were ready for shorts. The mid 70s to low 80s and it was swimming weather. We felt like the 90s were so unbearably hot and humid that we stayed indoors and would seek out air conditioning.

Now, after two years in Texas, the temperature has to be in the ninety's before we feel warm enough to swim. The water has to feel like bath water and that happens when the air temp is close to 100 degrees. The sun is shining all the time and the sky is blue all year round.

I do not regret for one minute moving to Texas. I will take 3 months of 100 degrees and the boiling sun, over the bitter bone chilling cold. I will take the few days a year of the ice storms that melts in a few days, over the 12 inches of snow that you have to shovel, drudge through, drive in, and that doesn't melt until April. We still have the storms and tornadoes (without the basements and with the added hail), but I still will take that over the Midwest winters.

What surprised me the most was that when the temperature hit 74 degrees I was "cold".   I started wearing long jeans and a sweater. The outside temp was in the high 80s and I still felt a chill. This is in no way a complaint, I love the "cooler" temps, but I have to remind myself that this is still Summer temperatures in the Midwest.

Boy have I acclimated!