So although it’s relatively warm here during the winter, there are definitely some changes that occur with the change of the “seasons,” and, as with everything in life, they come with their pros and cons:

Pros:

1. Cute scarves.

2. Better tea (Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride from Celestial Seasonings, anyone?)

3. Pumpkin and cinnamon flavored everything. Yesss.

4. I have an excuse for my Scandinavian chronic paleness.

5. Christmas lights in the palm trees.

6. Christina Aguilera’s “My Kind of Christmas” from 2001. I bust this out every year and it NEVER gets old.

Cons

1. The gym is packed. All the people who ran outside are now on my treadmill. Grr.

2. Flocked Christmas Trees. I don’t understand why Californians insist on this disgusting trend every year—WE LIVE IN CALIFORNIA. We don’t get snow. So buying a tree with FAKE snow on it, really? Tacky. Tacky and ungrateful. Let’s just take our 70 degree Christmas and move on; if we don’t have to deal with the cold that comes with the real stuff, we don’t deserve the fake stuff.

3. Remembering jackets. It’s just not in our nature to remember, and the nippy 58 degree weather is hard on our thin California blood!

But before I make the East Coasters too jealous, I will say that every California girl DOES occasionally pine for the hope of a snow day, a snowball fight and the ability to make snow angels.

What do you think? What are your favorite/least favorite things about winter?

[Photo courtesy of Flickr]

So, my dad – an ever-proud Mizzou alum – recently decided to tell me about his beloved university’s Student Recreation Complex (a fairly new addition, erected in 2005). As someone who doesn’t even know the location of her own school’s rec center, you can imagine my apathy (I think my exact response was “Meh”).

Upon further information though, I understand what my dad was on about. Um, this architectural gluttony was modeled after Cribs and it even boasts its own Playboy-inspired “Tiger Grotto”. There is a sauna. There is a hot tub. There are waterfalls and palm trees. There is a curtailed version of the Six Flags sensation Lazy River, and – oh yeah – waiters to serve up wraps and smoothies poolside.

What’s that? You need a mani-pedi? A cucumber facial? A deep-tissue, reflexological, aromatherapeutic massage? All available on demand.

Fine, Mizzou students! When you’re finished there, why don’t you just wrap yourselves up in your towels of gold, slip on your diamond flip-flops, and ride your stallion-drawn carriage back to the dorms! Pfft!