Breaking up is hard to do...

(This post was originally written in April.  Better late than never, right?)

I spent today packing up winter.  Literally.  I matched gloves, counted hats, rolled scarves, sized puffy jackets, folded up snowpants, and stuffed everything into a plastic bag that is currently wedged on a shelf in the closet.  Snowboots are currently enjoying their last hurrah.

Breakup's underway, you see, and that means summer is on its way.  Tiny birds have thawed in the trees and are terrorizing the squirrels that have likewise materialized.  The snow continues to melt--yes, it may refreeze every night, but each day the snow-hills are smaller and the icy puddles larger.  The days are longer... 

Seriously, like ridiculously longer.  Some of you may remember my posts about the winter, when at the height of the glorious darkness, the sun rose around 11 and set by 2:30.  A lot of people complain about the darkness, and I will admit that I, native lower 48-er that I am, was prepared for a long, miserable hole of a winter.  However, initial apprehension at the shrinking days in October turned to delight by Thanksgiving.  Between the extreme cold and the dark, I finally had a legitimate reason to hibernate.  I Netflixed my way through winter, no Vitamin D necessary.

These days, though, the sun starts peeking around 5:00 am; right now, it's 10:05, and the last bit of sunset is still clinging to the horizon.  It is seriously still bright enough to read outside.

I don't know what I'm going to do.

It's only part-way through April; the days are just going to get longer and brighter until the summer solstice in June.  The days already seem incredibly long, and I promise it's not because I now have six minions stuck in the house with me.  They're affected by it, too.  During the winter, they easily slept until 9:30; I fondly remember putting them to bed at 7 and having hours upon hours to myself.  Now, even with blackout curtains, they are up by 6 and it is nearly impossible to get them to bed, much less asleep, by 10.

Don't even get me started on the toddler. 

You don't realize how much the daylight affects your schedule until it goes all wonky.  Even something as simple as dinner gets hosed up because 5 o'clock sneaks up on you.  Looking out the window, you're like, "Oh, it can't be that late, look how bright it is," and then you glance at the microwave as you're getting a snack and see 6:37 glowing in smug little blue numbers.  As a result, we may or may not have eaten a lot of sandwiches and cereal for dinner lately.

If the documentaries are to be believed, the summers here are supposed to be flipping incredible.  Plants grow like the Hulk because of the near constant light.  Animals and people alike party basically nonstop for four months to make up for the rest of the year spent running from warm place to warm place.  I figure if I stock up on Benadryl, and set alarms on my phone for meals and bedtime, I just might survive.

Goodbye, winter and real night time. I'll miss you.