Winter, Texas style

Driving home from work today, my little sedan battling ferocious winds, the meteorologist on the radio confirmed my suspicion – colder temperatures are barreling toward southeast Texas.

After a brutal summer of 100-plus degree temperatures and a lingering and crippling drought, most people would be glad the temperatures are dipping into the upper 40's over the next few nights.

Not me.

I grew up near Buffalo, N.Y., living with snow for six months out of the year. After we moved to the South, my blood thinned out, and I cannot take cold temperatures anymore. I thrive in the summer and whine my way through the winter.

When cold weather does roll into town, it means I have to find the few winter items I own. I put off hauling out those cold-temperature clothes until the mercury hits 50. According to the weatherman, the day of reckoning has arrived.

Sighing, I started rifling through my closet to see where I stand. I have a pair of blue jeans I wear in the summer and the winter. They're light-weight denim because I refuse to wear pants that weigh more than a bag of potatoes.

Underneath the jeans I discover my favorite winter clothes – sweat pants. Avant-garde fashion designers turn their noses up at sweat pants, but I don't know what I'd do without my baggy sweats to get me through the winter.

One pair is gray, and they're worn on the knees, but quite serviceable. The other pair is blue, still decorated with the beige paint I used on my son's bedroom about 10 years ago and the silver paint I used on my youngest boy's bedroom five years earlier. Both go on top of the winter pile.

Let's see – there's a couple of pairs of black jeans in the back of the closet I can wear to dress up, so I should be all set in the pants department.

Now for shirts – I wear T-shirts year round because I avoid long-sleeved shirts like the plague. The cuffs somehow find their way in my lunch and serve as a magnet for every speck of dust and dirt I walk past.

That's probably an exaggeration, but I've come up with a reason why I dislike winter clothes.

Sweaters are too itchy, turtlenecks are too suffocating and scarves, well, they're just too frou-frou. Usually I throw a sweater over my T-shirts because I can toss that aside, and I run fast from my car to the front door so I avoid wearing a jacket.

There is one area, though, where I can't avoid the winter fashions – shoes.

Oh how I miss my summer shoes in the winter. Summer footwear consists of lively colors, breezy open toes and slip-ons in every color of the rainbow.

For some reason, shoe manufacturers think all women love to wear boots in the winter, and store shelves are filled with dozens of boots in two colors – black and brown.

Unfortunately, I have thin calves, and my legs roll around in boots like a 5-year-old playing dress up, so I'm stuck buying sensible winter shoes that look like something my first grade teacher, Sister Adrian wore.

Reluctantly I dragged out a pair of black and brown tie-up shoes and wistfully tossed my sandals in the back of the closet.

But in every cold cloud there's a silver lining.

Socks.

Because winter clothes are so drab, I have socks in every color of the rainbow. Of course, most of them have holes in the toes and heels, but I don't care. Those dowdy winter shoes cover up the holes, and I love having some color in my wardrobe when it's stark and bare outside.

Even though it's blustery outside, hope springs eternal in we warm-blooded creatures. I'm going to leave out a few summer clothes for those warm winter days and circle the vernal equinox, March 20, 2012, on my calendar.

I want to be ready to walk out the door wearing my shorts, T-shirts and sandals when those hot-and-humid Texas temperatures finally return.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.