How's The Weather?

What's the weather like at your house today? Here, in the central part of Kansas, it's really cold. Our high today is to be 27, after 47 yesterday and a prediction of 52 for tomorrow. Crazy roller coaster temps! We'd be thrilled if we had some snow like the little bird in the picture above is experiencing. Our area of the country is now classified as Extreme Drought. It's a worry for the farmers and everyone else.

Which brings me to today's topic. I wrote yesterday about sharing your memories with family by keeping a Memory Book. I usually suggest dividing the book into 12 sections--one for each month. Write about the things you remember in each month and keep adding more stories each year. Some may be only reflections, not full stories.

Then, create a few more sections, using those divider pages you pick up at your local discount or office supply store. Mark one for Weather. Others might be Food, Illnesses, School, Hobbies. Anything else you might think about. Some of the stories may overlap from a specific month to one of these other sections. You can put it wherever you like. It's YOUR book. Or copy the story and put it in two places. It's YOUR book.

Let's look at the Weather section. Grandpa is always telling grandchildren about how deep the snow was, how cold or how hot when he was a kid. Grains of truth with seeds of embellishment in some cases. Think back to what the summers or winters were like during your childhood. How do they compare to what we have now. Be honest! Were there certain storms that you remember well? Write about it. Did you have summers so hot that you could do almost nothing productive? Write about it. Did you live in a place where the weather was near perfect? Write about it. Were the trees in your cherry orchard picked clean by the birds one summer? Did your dad's pumpkin field yield a bountiful harvest one year because of perfect weather conditions? There are many angles from which you can approach weather memories.

Write about the activities you and your family did on cold, winter days. The same for those hot, muggy summer days. Maybe you grew up in a different part of the country than where your children and grandchildren live now. The weather patterns might be altogether different. Write about your weather for them.