Enough already! Part II

Dear Robin,
Here I sit, looking out to another crappy day in Chicagoland--high 42, rainy, windy, and gray.

An interesting tidbit of information that may shed light (for a Southerner like you) on the severity of this nasty, awful, persistent weather is that our outside cat, who LOVES the outside, won’t even go outside. She paces around the front door, but when I open it for her, she sniffs the air then turns around, slinking (low to the ground in disgust, I might add) in the other direction, in favor of spending the afternoon in a comfortable chair in my closet ( get it? INSIDE the house, NOT OUTSIDE where she loves and belongs). Good grief…

A few weeks ago, when the local news predicted warmer, dryer temps, but Mother Nature remained stubbornly cold and rainy, I consoled myself with a double whammy “spring” shopping spree, thinking the rush of endorphins would last until the weather broke.

I started on-line with two pairs of wedge sandals, two dresses (decidedly shorter and more “spring-like” in both fabric and design) and a few short-sleeved cardigans from Nordstrom.

After a brief workout and a lunch that undid the workout, I went to a local boutique and bought two pairs of jeans and a half dozen short sleeved shirts.

It made me happy for a day or two, until the weather persisted and everything just hung in my closet lifelessly with the tags weighing it all down, making it feel like an incredible waste of effort and money--a quick fix that didn’t bridge the gap to anything.

Ultimately, I rationalized the whole thing with the idea that it had to get warmer AND when it did, I would wear these cute things to class, making me a very professional-looking professor, even in the spring. So on the days when I’m feeling less than scholarly and less than qualified to do my job, I would at least look the part. My dad always taught me that looking like you know what you’re doing is sometimes just as good as actually knowing. This idea has saved me more than a handful of times from various predicaments—scholarly and otherwise.

But you know where this is going—I haven’t had the chance to wear any of it AND MY SEMESTER ENDS NEXT WEEK!! And after my semester, where in the heck will I wear these “professional” looking items? Once I’m done with class, I spend my mornings at the gym and my afternoons taxi-ing my kids around—most days in the same yoga pants and tank top I started out in. It gives me a headache to even think about it. And so to Mother Nature, in my loudest outside voice, I say, yet again, Enough Already!!