It would be an understatement to say that growing up, I liked Little House on the Prairie. I LOVED Little House on the Prairie!! The show, the books, the scenery, the characters, the adventures, all of it was perfection! I may have even dressed up as Laura Ingalls for 2 Halloweens.

Okay, fine, it was 3 Halloweens. And a few random weekdays. Don’t judge me.

My admiration and appreciation for Laura Ingalls Wilder’s classic stories have remained strong through the years and getting to enjoy them again with my daughter a few years ago rekindled that flame. So it doesn’t really surprise me that often throughout these last few frigid months, her book “The Long Winter” has been on my mind.

This has been a record breaking winter for us, up here in the South Arctic. (3rd snowiest, 4th coldest, most consecutive school days missed without parents and kids alike going completely stir crazy!) I’ve run the gamut of emotions this winter. At first, it was exciting and fun. Yay! So pretty! Let’s go sledding!

Then it settled down into an accepted part of the daily routine. Get everyone bundled up to go outside, make sure the kids have their plethora of snow gear to take school each day. We bragged to family who live further south about how deep the snow was getting and how cold it was. This is real winter.

I appreciated the artistic shapes the wind carved into the deep snow with each new storm. I made sure to marvel at the growing height of the snow banks and drifts. I laughed at the irony that one of this year’s most popular movies was “Frozen!” But as the weeks of relentless bitter cold and snow wore on, I struggled to let it go. I began to silently dread getting everyone bundled up just to go outside, and grudgingly made sure the kids had their plethora of snow gear…again.

I kept a stiff upper lip about the weather (Not by my own choice, really, it was frozen that way!) until last week when some well-intentioned meteorologist pointed out that when it warmed recently it would be the first time it had been above 40 since the start of December! 3 months! A quarter of the year! *sigh* I felt defeated. Don’t get me wrong, I love my cozy sweaters, pretty scarves, and boots, but I was ready to move on. Apparently, Mother Nature was not.

So as I sat in bed last night, listening to the wind howl and sleet and snow pound against the house in the middle of March, I thought of Pa Ingalls listening to yet another spring blizzard rage against their house on the plains. While my family is not stranded, out of fuel, freezing, and on the brink of starvation, but thankfully, warm and safe in our house, I understood in a way that I never had before his impulse to jump up, shake his fist at the blizzard and shout defiantly at the wind, “Rage on all you want! You won’t beat us!”

When I awoke this morning to a renewed blanket of snow outside and was greeted with a message of yet another snow day, I resigned myself to be as resilient as my childhood hero and make the best of the situation. So we made pancakes and colored pictures and watched the wind swirling the snow outside. It may be “the everlasting winter,” as my son calls it. But it will make that warm spring sunshine just all that much sweeter. When, and if, it ever comes!