20 Ways an AZ Summer = a MN Winter!

By
Rebecca Hubanks
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18

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Our family moved to Phoenix from southeast Minnesota 1 year ago, making THIS our first full AZ summer — and all I can say is Holy Moley. This desert dwelling thing is no joke!

If you find yourself in Phoenix sweating summer or in Minnesota braving winter, you’ll surely relate to these parallels

… and you have my heartfelt sympathies, complete with a giant albeit sweaty {you’re welcome} hug!!

1. Your utility bills are unbelievably astronomically fourletterwordworthily super high.
2. You duck your head and dart quick-as-lightening from your car to the nearest building. Any building.
3. You dare not seat your toddler in a shopping cart that has spent more than 4 consecutive minutes outside.
4. Two words: Cabin Fever. “If only we could go to a park!”
5. Two more words: Weight Gain. For them, it’s baked goods and cocoa; for us, it’s beer and ice cream. But the outcome is the same…
6. You open wide the vents and run your car for 15 minutes before entering.
7. It’s 4 months long, if you’re lucky.
8. You long for 50 degrees.
9. Anyone who can leave town, does, making your neighborhood a veritable ghost town.
10. Standing in a parking lot, buckling your child into his car seat becomes the single most miserable physical experience of both of your lives.
11. You go to great lengths to park under some kind of structure/awning/sizable vegetation.
12. It takes ffffoooorrrreeevvvveerrrrr to leave the house.  If it isn’t coats, mittens, socks and boots, it’s sunblock applied, water bottles filled, hats secured and more sunblock applied because maybe your mom is an oncology nurse and you have red hair and therefore boast zero tanability. (Or is that just at our house?) 
13. You find yourself lingering near heat- or cold-producing appliances.
14. Anything with a drive thru becomes “Gourmet” in your mind.
15. You wouldn’t be caught dead outside without shoes. Or if you were caught, you would probably be dead.
16. Some of the most harrowing images you can conjure involve having car trouble and no cell service.
17. The presiding topics of conversation become anticipated travel plans, recently embarked upon travel excursions, and dreams of some-day travel ventures.
18. The community motto becomes “Why Is It, Again, That We Live Here?”
19. You quickly exhaust any and all possible indoor entertainment options for kids.
20. You stop checking the weather forecast, realizing it’s only going to be “VERY HOT” or “VERY COLD”.

*****

These being said, we in Arizona might have a leg up.
“Why,” you ask?

Because one fact remains (say it with me!): 

You can’t shovel sunshine!

*****

*This post is dedicated to all of my beloved MN friends. You didn’t unfriend me when I posted with nauseating frequency scads of gorgeous Arizona winter weather Facebook photos. I now must suffer in kind as my feed is filled daily with images of your lakes and your gardens and your beautiful green outsideness. I have tasted my own medicine, and it is bitter. You win the weather war……… until January!!

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18 COMMENTS

  1. Hi Rebecca!
    Great article- I can definitely relate 🙂 I recently moved from MN to AZ too! (I grew up in the Twin Cities) I’d love to connect with you at an upcoming moms night out or even for coffee. -Emily Schiesl

    • Hi Emily — so glad to know someone else who can relate! And I would love to connect — how kind of you! Find me on Facebook?

  2. This article is amazing!!! We are also new to AZ after living our whole lives in MN (minus two years in FL). I would love to connect w/ you guys as well! We need some buddies to watch Vikings games! 😉

    • Hi Mandie – We definitely rooted for the Vikings during our MN stint! Find me on Facebook? Let’s make a get-together happen!

  3. We are midwesterners originally, moved here by way of the PacNW. First summer here and very pregnant with our first baby. All of the above is true, except I’m thinking I’d rather shovel. Help!!

  4. Rebecca, this is so great! I love your blog posts and look forward to reading them whenever they turn up! It’s such a bright spot in my day, and I leave the emails waiting in my inbox until I can sit down on a calmer morning with a cup of coffee and savor them and laugh! Love, your little sister.

  5. I laughed out loud – so funny Rebecca! And so true!! We spent two summer months in AZ when I was pregnant with Brad, and had 1 1/2 year old Kerryn who wanted to go outside and play ALL the time. We visited parks, and were back by 8am, and swam in the evenings when Steve came home! Otherwise, indoors everything!!!!! You are so right! Hang in there – your smiles will return with our first snowflakes … 🙂 Love and miss you!!

    • Ingrid, I can read this perfectly in your accent. 🙂 Thanks for relating — and thank you for not warning me about you experience before we moved! Ha!! We miss you. Come visit us —- in the winter!!!

  6. I love this article! I’m grew up in southern Minnesota and only moved to the CA and now AZ on a whim…I always thought I’d be back and I miss it quite a bit, but have come to enjoy the Arizona weather, especially (of course) in the winter.

    If you gals are planning on meeting up, I’d love to join you!

    -Marta

  7. Love this! Hang in there! I am also from Texas and lived both in Minneapolis and Arizona for several years until I moved back to TX a month ago. I would say the other good things is that the heat does not last nearly as long as the snow. It was always hard for me to believe there was still snow/ice on the ground in May.

  8. My husband and I are Minnesota born and raised. Arizona was the one state I always said I would never move too. Challenge accepted! My husband (also an oncology nurse) got a job offer, and here we are, two summers in. As much as I miss the snow, I do think AZ summers are more manageable. No regrets moving here though; God has blessed us with a wonderful life here, an best of all our son! Pray he pours his blessings on you too!

    • Thanks, Angie! AZ definitely wasn’t on my radar either, but we are glad to be here (though that will be easier to say in a couple of months!!). Hope you are enjoying!

  10. So many accurate parallels! I love this, especially since it’s my first month/summer month here in AZ and I spent the previous 30 years in the Midwest! I sure won’t miss waking up early to scrape ice/snow off my car while standing in slush, all muscles unable to move due to freezing temps, then driving to work/wherever in a car that has still not heated up by the time of arrival! Great writing!

  11. Rebecca,
    I love the comparisons 🙂 They made me smile, even though I have never been to MN! I hear from so many people that they’d rather have the heat than shovel snow! I guess it would be nice to experience both, so maybe I’ll check out Flagstaff instead!
    You are so humorous in your article 🙂 I love it!

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