May 1, 2012 — Spring has arrived. You know the season is finally here when you begin the hunt for warm weather clothes. The week before last my husband, Terry, went out to the garage to look for shorts.

Unfortunately, he could not find them because there are still a lot of bins stuffed into the space I have been trying to organize since I moved into this house a year and a half ago.

I did not have time to search for them as I pushed to finish my articles for the newspaper and get to Sacramento in time for a matinee musical for which my mom had purchased tickets.

The heat I experienced in the valley prompted me to stop at Kohl’s in Chico and buy Terry a new pair of shorts to keep him comfortable until I could locate his summer wardrobe.

As a child the first sign of warm weather did not result in a search for shorts but instead time spent pleading with my mother to be allowed to take off my shoes and go barefoot.

My brother, sisters and I did not wear shoes in the summer and by fall our toes would spread wide and flat freed from the confinement of hard leather. We always asked to go without shoes too soon, when the ground was still damp from spring rain.

Maybe the quest for shorts this year came too soon as well.

It seems the spring rains are still in the weather forecast. Regardless, the wardrobe switch is a bi-annual chore that cannot be avoided.

Timing is everything. I never seem to get it right. In the winter we hunt for snow pants as the plows rumble past the driveway leaving a high berm.

It is difficult to smoothly transfer wardrobes from season to season.

The experts advise transitioning. This involves mixing and matching winter and summer wardrobes.

For example, women might wear a chunky knit sweater with a sleeveless summer dress or switch out a wool scarf for a woven textured scarf to ward off the cold.

The experts also advise taking one’s time when preparing to store clothes for a season. This is an opportunity to examine each item to see if it is worth placing in storage.

They say we should consider donating items to charity that weren’t worn all winter. Also, make sure all items are mended and dry cleaned if needed before they go in the storage bin.

Anything that moths might damage should be protected with a cedar block.

An orderly process is good advice for those of us who never can find what we did with last season’s wardrobe.

Of course it is never a good idea to pack away all seasonal items because there are times when you may need a pair of shorts in the winter or a coat in the summer. When we lived in Sacramento Terry and I would drive to the Bay Area to watch an Oakland A’s baseball game and find we were not dressed warmly enough.

We would be a source of amusement to the other fans in long pants and sweatshirts as we embraced a cup of coffee to stay warm.

In February, some friends who had attended a wedding in Florida stepped off the plane in Reno wearing tropical attire. The weather conditions included a bitter wind and snow flurries.

I am told snow flurries can come unexpectedly in the mountains in any season, even the middle of summer. So with this in mind I will try this year to conduct an orderly transition so I know where the snow pants are located should the plows go by on the fourth of July.