surviving winter, part 1: embrace it

Lost River Modern, West Virginia. February 2010.

I am an unabashed hater of winter. I hate cold weather. I hate winter coats. I hate that it gets dark early. I hate scraping my windshield and shivering and tracking snow in the house. Yuck. I hate winter.

Virginia winters are way too cold for me. Northerners are laughing, but we do get cold weather and snow here. And yes, I do have experience with extreme winters, too, since I went to college in the snowiest city in the country. Five years of my life were spent with frozen nipples here:

Via Golden Snow Globe.

Brrrr. What was I thinking going to school in Syracuse? I have no effing idea.

Anyway, February is a particularly difficult month for me. I'm so sick of winter by the time February rolls around. Luckily, it's a short month - because other than being able to stuff my face with cookies and chocolates on Valentine's Day, I have no use for this month.

The best way to survive winter, in my opinion, is to escape it and go somewhere warm. Of course, this method isn't always possible, so last year, my strategy was to just embrace it and we took a winter getaway in February to Lost River, WV. If you can't surround yourself with sunshine and white sand, I highly suggest cozying up in a cabin with your closest friends, cooking comfort foods, sitting by the wood stove reading books, and drinking copious amounts of beer.

And I actually enjoy a view like this, especially when it can be seen from my spot on the couch by the woodstove:

Lost River Modern is a fantastic place to visit. It's a modern prefab cabin just two hours from D.C. I love love love the modern architecture and simplicity of this place - a rare find in West Virginia. 



And also - it's dog friendly!


We ate well:

And the non-winter hating boys were willing to walk through the snow to refresh our beer supply:

Here's a video that I made after we returned from our trip last winter:

Lost River 2010 from Funnelcloud Rachel on Vimeo.

See the rest of the photos from our trip here.

So, how do you survive winter? I'm always open to suggestions! (And don't say skiing. I've been once and it ended with me removing my skis and walking down the mountain. I'm more of a hot tub/hot chocolate kind of girl.)