Probably
my biggest worry since coming to Upstate New York has been how to prepare for
winter. Moving from Tupelo, Mississippi
(where it is practically 100°+ year round) we know we are going to be in for a
shock when we experience our first “real” winter this year. During winter of 2009, Tupelo got hit with a
whopping .25″ of snow. That ‘blanket’
shut down the entire northern part of the state and you couldn’t find bread,
milk or eggs at the ransacked Wal-Mart to save your life.
Tupelo, MS: Serious Southern Snowfall!
Living
in the South, we’ve never had a need for a snow shovel, snow boots or even a
heavy coat. Gloves and scarfs are just
cute little accessories that you don’t really need. I’ve never even seen a snowmobile before we
came up here. When our apartment lease
offered free snow removal, we had to ask what that meant. So when we made our first little recon trip to
Albany in early March, we were amazed at the snow piles…they were taller than
we were!
Albany, NY: The most snow I’ve ever seen!
Wikipedia
alleges that the Capital Region gets more than 60″ of snow annually and that often
temperatures will drop below 0 °F at night. Apparently, Albany is close
enough to the Atlantic coast to get hit with heavy snow from Nor’easters and the
area occasionally receives Alberta clippers (and yes, I had to look up what
that was). Fan-freakin-tastic!
This
year, our Christmas wish list is suddenly sporting wool socks and long
johns. However, we can’t wait for Ole Saint
Nick to deliver winter warmness and realized there were some things we were
gonna’ have to score on our own. Sadly,
neither me nor my husband owned a ‘real’ winter coat! We have plenty of jackets but nothing in the ‘fight
frostbite’ caliber. The last few weeks
have been research ridden! Learning
about the latest in clothing technology, we knew to look for something waterproof,
lined, hooded, able to withstand “arctic” temperatures and cute (if
it wasn’t too much trouble). Easier said
than done!
Even after
immersing ourselves in product reviews and trying on every jacket in Saratoga
County we still came up short. It wasn’t
until we came across the Spyder outlet store at the Woodbury Common Premium
Outlet Mall that we found what we were looking for. (BTW-that outlet mall was insane!) And we figured if it was good enough for the
U.S. Olympic Ski Team, then it would work for us.
Officially Winterized!
Our new
duds may just be one small step towards surviving the Yankee cold. If we freeze
to death this winter, at least we’ll look like we
tried. Now we just gotta find some winter-appropriate shoes….
