Top 10 Things I Won't Miss . . .

. . . About Living in New England
(once I move out to sunny L.A.)

10. the frigid cold that freezes up my jeans in a short 5 second walk to my car

9. slipping and sliding (with an occasional (foul?!) exclamation) my way to the car on the driveway, to the grocery store from my icebox of a car, to 'Shroom's bus, and essentially to any destination outside of my house

8. reducing my already low MPG (miles per gallon) by 87% simply by letting the car idle on the driveway so the kids don't complain about how cold they are in the car

7. detaching the garden hose from the backyard water nozzle and seeing (alas, I'm too late) that the hose is filled with ice (are you sensing a "theme" to this Top 10 list?!)

6. chipping ice from the driveway to prevent skidding and smashing into my neighbor's car (but missing the ice and whanging my big toe)

5. spending 10 minutes to warm up the car, 10-30 minutes scraping the car free of ice and snow (and occasionally another 10 minutes more to chip the ice that's frozen the sliding doors of the minivan in place), 15 minutes dressing the kids to go outside, another 10 minutes undressing them and redressing them after slathering lotion on them to apease their whines of itchy dry skin (it takes less time the second time around simply because I say "screw it!" with the mittens and hat), 5 minutes to gingerly walk across our skating rink of a driveway to our car . . . all for a 3 minute ride to drop off 'Shroom at school

4. ice, cold, windchill (did I mention any of these yet?!)

3. monthly heating bills of over $400

2. the desire to hibernate for 25% of the year and do nothing but drink lots of hot syrupy sweet drinks that don't get burned off because I'm too cold to go to a gym, go to my car to drive to the gym, go outside to get to my car to drive to the gym

and the #1 thing I won't miss about living in New England,

duh . . . the cold.

[stay tuned for my next Top 10 list, "Top 10 Things I Miss About Living in New England (now that I'm here in L.A.)" - most likely to be out in 6 months or so when the temps hit the 3 digit mark]