Snowy days will not be missed while I'm in Florida

The first thing I did this morning was use the snowblower to clean off the snow from my driveway, and it's not stopped snowing all day, so right now you can't tell that I even did anything but waste my gas.

As I look out the window right now I see that the wind has picked up a bit, and the snow appears to be falling in every direction all at once from an overcast skyline. It's kind of like an optical illusion. It's so white today that as I look at the house across the street I can barely tell where the road is, even though the snow plows trudged through my subdivision only a few hours ago.

It's the thick, fluffy, pretty kind of snow actually; the kind that coats the tree bark and lies pleasantly on the branches; the kind that lies thickly on the pines, causing the branches to droop quite a bit.

I can see the top part of a huge snowball my son and daughter made together over a month ago. It was so large when it was first made that it was durable enough to last through not one but two rainy days when most of the snow melted. It's nice having those rainy days, because it makes it feel like spring.

The 35-40 degree temperatures on those days is a nice break from weather in the teens, or worse, the one day this year when temperatures dropped to sub zero. There are only a few of those days I can remember in my lifetime, and this year presented us with one of them

However, those warmer days were but a mere aberration in what has become a very long winter. And those extremely cold days will make us appreciate springtime, which we hope is just around the corner with the coming of baseball season. And, as pitchers are to report to camp within the next week or so, we know that spring can't be far away.

As cabin fever sets into maximum gear, it's spring that we long for. Sure, those days on the snowmobile, or sledding with the kids, or watching the kids make snowmen, were a joy. But none of that beats the warm, fresh breezes blowing through the wind on a pleasant spring day, when the snow is just about gone.

I will be in Florida as the pitchers report. I will not go to see them, however, as my children are at the age where they prefer to go to Disney Land and then to Universal Studios. I can't imagine I would enjoy Disney Land so much if it were not for the huge smiles and laughter that place lands on the faces of my children, and wife.

Universal Studios, in my opinion, is much cooler. Not cooler as in the temperature on the other side of the window to my right, where all I can see is a white, snowy blanket covering everything, but cool as in awesome.

And, as we leave for Florida, I'm not going to miss this weather one bit.