Liquid Sunshine

So you'll never guess what happened... The bipolar weather is back, yet again. After almost a week of partly cloudy and temperatures climbing up to fifty-five degrees, it was beautiful outside. Although the overcast clouds yesterday started to indicate the downpour we received today.

I could hear the rain drops by the time I went to bed last night. I actually am in love with falling asleep to the sound of a drizzle outside my window. Waking up seven hours later, the chilliness was what hit me first. The coldness made me want to climb even deeper into the warmth of my heavy down comforters. Then the smell started to creep up my nose. The wet pavement and running gutters wafted through my bedroom. I quickly shut my cracked window and got out of bed.

Photo Courtesy www.howtobeadadtoday.com

Heading outside to get in the car, the reflection of the gray sky was mirrored off of the blacktop driveway, and a mist slowly fell from the air, not even enough to call it a drizzle. I ran back inside to grab a raincoat. I love this kind of weather. I like how it makes the day at school so cozy, and somehow you feel the warmth radiating off of other people more just because of the cold outside. I like looking out the classroom window and noticing how smoky the sky looks. I like how everyone shows up to school in sweatshirts and scarfs. I don't see the rain as such a bad thing on a day like this.

The rain soon turned into sleet as the day began to get colder. By this evening the precipitation could easily be classified as snow. By the end of the day a thin layer of sugar veiled the ripening grass, it should probably be melted away by tomorrow or the next day. It feels as though every time the grass begins to fade to green, and the trees begin to foliate, and the flower begin to bloom, it must snow.

The rain made me want to curl up with a hot coa-coa and read a good book or watch an old movie. The coziness of the rain is completely evident to everyone as well. The weather tends to put people on the same page like that. It's even been thought and proven that a rainy day can change your mood. This is mostly thought to have to do with how much sunlight your body is exposed to, so on a dark rainy day, for example, the amount of sun your body is receiving will obviously be significantly less than a hot sunny day. Rainy days can also effect your internal clock.

I'm not necessarily even complaining about the rain. I definitely enjoy a lazy and snug day under the clouds every once an a while. I'm just glad that the forecast foresees the sun coming back by Wednesday ;-). Until than I'm more than content grabbing some cuddly blankets and some 90s movies to wait out the rain.

Tick Tock on the Internal Clock

Everyone has an "internal clock" that keeps on ticking, and can be disturbed by time changes, location changes, and even weather changes. Yesterday was daylight savings. We moved an hour ahead for the spring. I personally like daylight savings because I really do enjoy the extra hours of daylight in the evenings. Although I do find some effect of disorientation having to adjust to the time change. Even though it may not be significant (only an hour ahead), waking up having lost an hour did sort of put me in a weird mood for the day. I am also a person that doesn't adjust well with time differences, I always have a hard time adjusting to the jet lag when traveling on the east coast. Daylight savings is just a miniature version of that in my own backyard.

Photo Courtesy amarillo.com

Not only has daylight savings had my internal clock feeling wonky (and I'm sure I'm not the only one), but the weather has been inconstant as well, to say the very least. Several weeks ago it felt closet to mid-April or May, the flowers even started to bloom and it was frankly feeling like the end-of-spring beginning-of-summer time. The very next week we had a massive storm and got snow in heaps. It was absolutely freezing for the preceding week. The past week felt like an average winter weather routine, although these previous couple days the weather has started to warm back up again. I know we all get so excited for a little gasp of spring air in our lungs, and then when the snow comes it's like being shoved back under the drowning waters of winter. The weather definitely effects my internal clock, I've been experiencing a good deal of central confusion and lack of focus in school when it's warmer outside, and then when it gets cold again it sends me into a depression-like state. I know I can't be the only one either. Even some of our teachers have been having some talks about the behavioral issues at school, and my science teacher, Ms. McKenna, told us her insight on how she thought it was because of the warmer weather and inconsistency in the weather might be effecting our "internal clocks" and that could very likely be playing into the bad behavior in school come this time of year.

The weather and time change are just enough to have me feeling like I'm in an episode of the Twilight Zone. I'm sure that I'll get back into a steady routine within the next week or so, but I really do dislike the sense of disorientation and confusion that a disruption to my internal clock brings. I don't know, maybe I'm just extra sensitive when it comes to a stable routine. I can understand that maybe you haven't been effected at all by these wacky changes in time and weather, but long-story-short, know you're not the only one if that's the case. ;-)