Weather: It's All Relative

I live in the North Georgia Mountains. At least, geographically. When I first moved here I met more people from Florida, than Georgia. One day I was getting a manicure and as the others in the salon and I were chatting I discovered we ALL were 'from Florida'. At first, the manicurist maintained she was from Georgia, but then she mentioned she was born in Plant City, FL and moved here when she was 4.

I have jokingly stated that Blairsville, GA is technically the northern most town in Florida, only Georgia thinks it belongs to them. Occasionally, I meet a 'local'; someone who was born and raised here. More often than not, when the conversation gets going, even someone who is from "Minnesota" will interject "when we lived in Florida" into the conversation. Once in a while I will discover that someone I considered a 'local' actually came from somewhere else, most often Florida. So, while I live in Georgia, sometimes it just doesn't seem that way.

I love this town. It is nestled in a beautiful part of the Appalachian Mountains. Summers get warm, but not as hot as Atlanta. Fall and Spring are lovely. We have four seasons. Snow makes an appearance, but it's not too serious. By that I simply mean we get inches, not feet. However, because we live in the south, a few inches can shut down this town as easily as 10 feet shuts down Buffalo. Maybe not. I'm not sure if anything shuts down Buffalo.

Truth be told, around here if there is snow in the mountains the people living there are stuck until it melts off. Sometimes that's in a few hours. When the weather is cold it can be several days. The 3 trucks with a plow are too busy keeping the main roads in town open to worry about anything more than a mile out of town. Salt? What is that? I'm pretty sure, Pittsburgh has cornered the market on salt. When we lived there I routinely found a bucket load of salt at every intersection. Here, we use gravel, (mixed with salt they say...).

The weather this week has separated us from Florida. The high one day was 29 degrees and that was at midnight. At 3:00 that afternoon we were sitting at 24 degrees. Then the cold front went through. The low was 9 degrees with a windchill of -1. That's right. I live in Georgia and we are expecting -1! Today the snow hit...and the town shut down. The predictions rolled in yesterday and by nightfall, schools were cancelled for today, along with everything else.

Our Winter Blizzard

Sorry Buffalo, but we here in the south, just don't put up with that stuff. We fold without a fight.

-1 is cold, but I give kudos to my daughter in Iowa. They finally decided to cancel church when the windchill was predicted to be -40!  I'm happy in the 20's. It's better than -40. But this is the one time of year I feel we separate ourselves from being a Florida town. If it ever hits -40 there we will know Hell is freezing over.

Wait! I didn't meant Florida is Hell!! I really didn't! I simply meant if it is that cold in Florida then Hell is probably freezing over too.

New Year--New ME?

New Year's Resolutions! We all have them. Well, a lot of us do. The smart ones remember that every day is a new day and they set new goals whenever the time seems right. The rest of us start lining up all the changes we want to see in ourselves, as we watch that giant crystal ball drop in Times Square imagining it is the starter pistol at a race.

I'm part of that crowd. I always have a couple of personal adjustments I'd like to see accomplished. So for this year, here we go;

Lose Weight! (Hey, I've never pretended to be original.) 10 pounds would be a good starting point. 40 pounds would be a great ending point. Last year I took off 10 in the winter. I put on 12 in the summer. I've taken off 5 of those so far. If I do the math, addition seems to be more my thing, than subtraction.
I've worked on a strategy for this, though. I figure if I just get up at 7:00 every morning I'll have time to work out and do the other daily stuff I want to do, before I head out to wherever I'm going later in the morning.
As my kids are reading this, they are laughing. I'm retired. I have no children to take care of. My husband fixes his own cereal. I never get up before 8:00--on an early day. Making myself get up at 7:00 every morning would be like telling them that getting their kids to go to bed every night promptly at 7:30 is simply a matter of telling them "good night". My will power has the laser efficiency of a weak flash light. I hit the snooze on the alarm more times than my grandkids come up with ways to avoid going to sleep.

So, my first resolution sits in limbo while it waits for me to recharge my will power.

Then there is my resolution to spend more time each day developing my spiritual focus. I often get involved in a daily devotional reading plan. I'm pretty good at it too. I can read the daily Bible verse on my iPhone while I'm brushing my teeth. I can peruse the devotion while Good Morning America is running in the background and get it done during a commercial break. Now, even I can figure out my focus isn't very focused.

It seems I'm not alone with this resolution thing. According to StatisticBrain.com this year's Top 10 resolutions fall under the following categories.
1. Lose Weight--(See I told you I'm not original!)
2. Getting Organized
3. Spend Less, Save More
4. Enjoy Life to the Fullest
5. Staying Fit and Healthy
6. Learn Something Exciting
7. Quit Smoking
8. Help Others in Their Dreams
9. Fall In Love
10. Spend More Time with Family

45% of Americans make resolutions. Unfortunately only 8% of us succeed in following through. (Interestingly enough, the younger you are, the more likely you are to follow through. Is that because they have more energy or because they aren't as set in their ways?)

Last year my resolution was broader, but simpler. I wanted to live each day more intentionally; waste less time, be in the moment more. I set some specific guidelines I wanted to achieve. I didn't hit that one out of the park but when I looked back over the year I had made good strides. And that's ok. It's really the kind of thing that is a work in progress. It will continue to be a daily focus.

When I compare last year's resolution to this year's, I come to the conclusion that resolving to make fundamental changes in my routine, like getting up early to work out, is likely to be less successful than making an overall change in the way I look at things. Assuming I'm like the majority of other people I would wager that of the Top 10 resolutions on this year's list, #1-Lose Weight and #7-Quit Smoking will be the most difficult to achieve. Those who resolved to #4-Live Life to the Fullest may well have the best chance of achieving that goal. It relies more on attitude than action. And it promises a reward of fulfillment.

That's a good goal. It piggy backs nicely on my goal from last year. I think I'll add it to my list,

The good news? I can cross #9 off the list! I did that 48 years ago. It was a very good year!