To sum up this week, I would call it the big thaw.

After weeks of frigid temperatures well below freezing and wind chills below zero, we are finally feeling the warmth of the sun again. Lehighton got up to a balmy 51 degrees on Tuesday!

I must admit that I do like snow and colder temperatures, but well ...

Winter is beautiful, especially after the snow has just fallen and everything is white. I love a good snowstorm. I love when the world seems like it freezes in place. No one is outside, no cars, no people — it’s just still, peaceful.

I love when the storm is over and neighbors come out to shovel out their driveways, and someone with a snowblower offers to help out his neighbors.

Children come outside, too, ready to jump on their sleds and speed down a hill or fall into the snow to make snow angels. The day almost always wraps up with a snowball battle, building a snowman or making an igloo.

This winter we had a great time sled riding with our grandchildren. The best sound in the world was hearing my granddaughter’s full belly laugh at the end of a thrilling sled ride down my front yard. It brings such immense joy.

Of course winter can be a pain in the butt, or more so the back — literally.

Too much of the white stuff sitting around for too long can be like company that doesn’t seem to want to go home. Melt already!

I was beginning to get just a little bit tired of the piles of snow. They have been so high in places that it was hard to see around them in my car at an intersection, and don’t get me started on narrow streets.

Oh, OK, get me started.

The snow piled between parked cars that crept out just enough into the lanes to push your car closer to the middle of an already too tight street has caused me to grit my teeth more than once. Take a breath. Soon that will all be a distant memory.

Before long, the blades of grass will be a carpet of green. The trees will be budding their leaves, and the flowers will soon follow.

Each season has its blessings and its trials. Spring has its promise of new life, and troublesome cold nights that threaten your new plants. But nevertheless, like my husband said to me this week, we will have to remember the winter of 2025-26, the year the snow — and bone chilling air — came and stayed for weeks.