I have been delighted with my new hobby and its side effects–better food and blogging–for not quite a year now, and am eagerly looking forward to continuing to receive those benefits. But now I am experiencing a severe downside. Which is: I am impatient with winter.

This has not happened to me before. I like winter; I like fall best, but I like winter. I enjoy the snow, the quiet, the holidays and then the respite from the holidays. I’ve never been very fond of spring (because I have a lot of spring allergies) so I’ve never felt any particular need to hurry winter along.

But now I’m sowing seeds in the winter, buying spring seeds and grow lights, planning out my planting schedule from February until August, wondering how my strawberry plants are faring, and above all, longing for gentle weather so that I can grow things again. I blame garden bloggers. That’s right: if I were not entertained by reading garden blogs in the middle of winter, I wouldn’t be thinking about gardening all the time. I would have turned to one of my other hobbies (and I have many) and be patiently biding my time until spring. As it is, I can’t wait for winter to be over…and it’s only January. It’s going to be a long, long winter.