This winter has been unreal. I got used to cold weather when I went to undergrad in Ithaca, NY since we had to walk to class no matter what the weather (no really, once they closed the county but we still had lecture, and this was pre-internet teaching so your butt had to be in that wood seat). NYC was no picnic either between the metal subway steps icing up and the wind blowing through the building canyons, but same deal. In order to get where you had to be, you got up, hiked to the subway, hiked out of the subway and into work.

Still, I don't remember more than a handful of days where the high remained below 15 and the wind chill was in negative territory. So today I had the luxury of staying in after seeing the temperature was 1 degree when I got up this morning, and cleaned my floors since I've been tracking in salt from the previous snowfalls. Especially after the last snow/ice event there are just mounds of snow and slabs of ice hanging out in all of the parking lots or on street corners since almost nothing has melted in two weeks.

I enjoy having four seasons. But considering this past summer was brutally hot in July, and now we're getting brutal cold in Dec/Jan/Feb, the temperature swings of over 100 degrees are a bit much. I have the appropriate clothes, since you can always put layers on whereas there's only so many you can take off in the summer, and they are getting a proper workout this year.

And finally of course, my greatest luxury is the ability to work from home every day. I know and appreciate it every damn day, and never lose sight of that, even when I feel like I'm being overworked. Compared to my last job, which defined overworked and then being taken advantage of in every possible way they could think of from benefits strangulation to what would now be 100% RTO and minimal pay, it certainly gave me a standard to measure against. And I'm BY FAR on the positive side of that equation in my new(ish) job.

It's also revealing that I consider a job I've been in for almost four years new(ish). Twenty five years ago, like most people first starting out, one year in a job was the exception not the rule as I was searching for what fit me within my field. And then I jumped from a year and a half to thirteen and a half years in that terrible job, where every year was worse, and the only recompense was living in NYC. 

While I do miss being in a social situation in offices, I wouldn't trade it at my age, and so I'm happy where I am. I'm just hoping these four years are the start of a long twenty year career at SIB. And also that the weather starts going above freezing sometime soon to melt some of this leftover snow lol.