Decades ago, when my husband was in Arizona with his work buddies, on a reward trip, a building-partnership trip, a "get out of Dodge it's winter here and perpetual summer there" trip, he called home the first night and announced, "It's raining."

"It's raining?" I said back. It hardly ever rains in Phoenix. Nearly 300 days…

It started last Sunday as the rain fell and fell, that closed-in feeling, that sense of foreboding, of "Oh, no, here it comes."

It's only rain, I said out loud, an incantation, really. It's rain, not snow. Be grateful.

And I was. Or tried to be. But last winter is still in the rearview mirror, with its mountains of snow, and impassable roads and sidewalks, and caved-in roofs, and ice dams, and no place to park the car, and endless, stormy days. And there's not enough…

I said, in December of 2014, as my husband and I were undecorating our house after it took weeks to get just so, as we were wrapping up Santas and Christmas plates, labeling snowmen and angels, packing away the creche, looking once again at all the photo cards I can't ever throw away, cards I store in a giant box in a closet and resurrect every December, that we should keep up the Christmas decorations all year long. Why not? They're bright and colorful. The tree is artificial. The garland is, too. Glitter and gold…

It’s noon on a late winter morning and I have already made breakfast, shoveled the driveway, interviewed a woman for a story, scrubbed the bathroom, answered emails, hand-written two thank you notes, and downloaded and edited photos for a video I’m presenting…