Dear Winter...

Dear winter,

Please stop. Kindly move along and allow an early spring to begin.  I appreciate that this is not the worst winter on record, that there has only been a slightly annoying amount of snow and nasty so far this year compared to others but I have had enough. After living in a part of the world that experiences all of the awesome parts of winter (and celebrates them) without it’s crappy grossness.

This is the first East Coast winter I have had to experience as a true adult and I am not enjoying it. I am out of winter wear; I’m really struggling to recycle my warm outfits to make it through an entire week in office appropriate clothing. Seriously, I would be all right if we could make 80s pant suits fashionable again at the office. I would be totally fine wearing shoulder pads for a little extra warmth. I keep a pair of wool socks stashed at my desk at ALL TIMES just in case my toes loose all their feeling.

I’m not a big baby. I can deal with the cold, but the cold isn’t what is annoying. It is being wet and cold day-in-day-out. If I spend any more time in my bathtub trying to thaw I think I will develop scales or turn into a mermaid.

The worst part?

Having to shovel snow before going to work. It is nearly 3pm and we still have not been plowed out. From the neck up I am totally ready to go to work. From the neck down, sweatys and my trusty wool socks. There is NOTHING worse than waking up and getting ready for work, shoveling a ridiculous amount of snow, cold winds blistering your skin as more snow falls from the sky and then working up a thick layer of sweat from tearing apart small mountains of snow that is packed down by ice.

Owning a dog I now know that I need to have winter boots to live in Canada. But, they are all so god awful that it pains me to think about spending money on them.

To be clear, I do not hate winter. I think I just hate winter in the Annapolis Valley. Last year winter in the Kootenays was awesome! World-class skiing and amazing winter celebrations made it all bearable. I feel like living away from the Valley for one winter really has changed how I see it now.

As I sit here stewing, waiting to be dug out of this relatively small amount of snow that kept me home from work today I really just needed to get a rant out. Again, I do not hate winter but I really cannot wait until this gross one is over.

Rebeckah from Whitewater Resort on the Kootenay Coldsmoke Powder Fest

Rebeckah Hornung from Whitewater Resort in Nelson joined me on the show to chat about the 8th Annual Kootenay Coldsmoke Powder Fest. Thank goodness we did not record the entire chat, it would have detailed exactly why I (unfortunately) will never be the Queen of the Hill :(

In all seriousness, Whitewater hosts the Kootenay Coldsmoke Powder Fest coming up February 21-23, 2014. For all the details you need (including ways to save money on registration) check out our chat below and head over to coldsmokepowderfest.com! 

Mountain FM Night at Phoenix Mountain

I just wrote about the awesome first part of my day onSaturday at the Rossland Winter Carnival. My awesome day continued with a trip to Grand Fork’s to check out Mountain FM Night at Phoenix Mountain. Now, I haven’t been downhill skiing since I was 15, nearly a decade ago. And before that it had been since I was 11. Skiing, not a huge part of young Kate’s life. I have always loved to ski, I think I would have been seriously addicted to skiing if I had not have started playing hockey and would have had more time for it. But, here we are, I am nearly 25 and have downhill skied three times; and I love it.

Back to Mountain FM night at Phoenix Mountain, well it started a little rough. My boyfriend joined me on the night adventure to Grand Forks and he wanted to test that I really am able to ski by taking me down the bunny hill. This was a horrible idea. It was like my body had forgot everything it had learned skiing in rural Nova Scotia and was intimidated by BC skiing. I had to walk sideways on my skis to get to the bunny hill, it was quite embarrassing. Could it get worse? You bet!

I approached the bunny hill, my boyfriend had already reached the top of the bunny hill. I waited my turn while all the kids that surrounded me caught the tow-rope up. When it was my turn I made it about half-way up the hill before my crappy cotton gloves gave out on the tow-rope, I frantically tried to pull myself along with the rope to no avail. My boyfriend waited and watched, I think he tried to say something to me but I was too caught up being embarrassed by the approaching child who was coming up behind me on the tow-rope. Then the rope lost all traction and I start sliding backwards towards the child behind me. The child wisely bailed off the rope and went down half the hill rather than being back-plowed by a twenty-five year old idiot sliding backwards. Part of me secretly wanted to play reverse ski-bowling into the children to see how many I could scramble. The other part of me wanted to crawl in a hole and die.

I managed to hold on to the rope as I slide backwards and then with a massive jolt I began moving forward again and gained a little ground up the bunny hill. I could feel the blisters forming on my thumbs so I let go and skied off before getting to the top. This is possibly the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to me in front of my boyfriend (he missed me eat-it cross-country skiing a couple weeks ago). As soon as I was within communicable distance with my boyfriend he shot off down the hill. While cursing him, I debated how bad it would look if I had as much trouble going down the hill as I did going up the hill. I discovered it could not be as embarrassing and shot off.

We met at the bottom and I made him promise to not make me do the bunny hill again. I used to think there was nothing as embarrassing as being passed by a small child on skis, I was wrong. The most embarrassing thing truly is halting the tow-rope line on the bunny hill while scrambling to hold on and pull your pants up. The poor kids behind me definitely got a little skin show; I need to by proper snow pants.

It has been said that I am relatively fearless on skis, which is kind of true. My first hockey practice when I was 12 years old (I had just quit figure skating to play hockey and had never skated in hockey skates before) I was really proud of myself that I did not fall at all. I was skating astonishingly slow, with flailing limbs; but I did not fall. My father was not impressed, he told me that was not how to measure how well I was doing and that falling meant I was really trying; I guess I took those words to heart because I tend to fall a lot as an adult… especially skiing.

Anyways, I only had one real wipe-out skiing at Phoenix and it was on my first run of the night. After the bunny hill everything seemed to come back to me really quickly. I have a nice little snow burn on my side to commemorate my only real skiing fail of the night on my first run, the tow-rope welts on my thumbs  are much worse. I was much more of a disaster on cross-country skis (somehow).

Thank you to everyone at Phoenix Mountain, you made my first night skiing trip memorable and managed to test my relationship! I think we passed our first trip skiing as a couple, I managed to not embarrass my boyfriend after the bunny hill experience and no one was injured.

I think Phoenix Mountain is the perfect starter hill, I am so happy I warmed myself up skiing there! It would be a great place to take the family and everyone there was incredibly nice! There is a full canteen with everything you could ever wish for food-wise. I can’t wait until Mountain FM night next year, I hope we see you there!

For more about Phoenix Mountain click here.

Jimmy Kimmel Shocks with 'Greetings From Sunny LA'

I’ll take being fully clothed with a little snow around. I feel weirdly bad for these people who really just wanted to wish us the best from warm, sunny LA; mixing bare skin and snow anywhere is a shock to your system wherever you are.

Although, a full vacation from the snow would be nice! This morning I parked in a different spot in Trail and had to dig myself out, get the car to street parking and then change my outfit because I was so snowy. Sometimes I really miss being a kid, decked out in a snow suit; ready for anything winter could bring. I do not miss forcing my body into a snow suit and that weird sweaty phase between getting the layers on and actually being outside.

One last thing I don’t miss about childhood winters, the smell of wet mittens.

There you have it, my thought process in a blog post:

LA-> Late Night TV sketch-> Snowballs -> Vacation-> Winter Worries -> Wishing for Childhood -> Being Thankful to Be an Adult

The circle seems complete.