My parents stopped by for lunch today which is always a nice Saturday treat for all of us, and the girls get especially excited for days before and after even if it doesn't seem as if they're appreciating it much at the time. It was especially nice today since we certainly weren't letting the girls out of the house!
At the moment I'm curled up with a laptop and a quilt in front of a roaring fire that Shawn built for us. I do love to have a fire in the fireplace, but this is actually a necessity for using the Great Room during weather like this as the room was definitely not designed or built to retain heat. And while sometimes I say I'll take any excuse I can get for a fire, I really could do without the frigid temperatures.
(Oh, there she goes on about the weather again...)
Before starting to blog I had to do a little research. When Dad came he said that the radio was reporting that La Crosse was the warm spot of the region so head towards La Crosse. I thought geez how bad is the rest of the region since I knew we were going to struggle to make above zero temps today. Well, the current temperature in La Crosse (Sat. 1/19 4 p.m.) is -4 and it feels like -22, but hey it is sunny out. So, then I pulled up the regional maps from the Weather Channel and while the forecast map did show La Crosse as the "hot spot" with a prediction of a zero high (don't think we got there), the actual temperatures across the region actually has the Twin Cities and Brainerd a few degrees warmer than us, and if you want the warm spot in Wisconsin it's Milwaukee at 2 degrees (yes, above zero). BUT, at these temperatures ... a few degrees really doesn't matter much. It's still blimp'n cold.
Thursday was the first day in a long time that I was really ready to move south. Our company headquarters (the one that bought us -- ECI2 not LMS) is in the Dallas - Fort Worth area and on Thursday if they would have offered me a job I would not have even hesitated ... well, maybe I could get a trip in yet this winter. On the other hand if they wait and ask me to go in July or August I don't think I'll be too happy about it.
Why Thursday? Well, Thursday we got more snow. Actually it started Wednesday night. Then it snowed all day Thursday. It wasn't heavy snow (in all, 5 inches), but just enough to make a really good mess without it being enough for the roads, sidewalks, parking lots etc. to be taken care of in a manner that prevented fishtailing with the car/van all over or getting snow up to your ankles when walking in and out of buildings. And, as always, it was a pain to get snow off of the van each time before driving (an extra pain for us short people).
Because it was 10 degrees (air temp, not windchill so it really felt colder) during the warmest part of the day, our wonderful daycare teachers could only let the kids watch the snow through the large windows in the main room. They are studying polar bears, igloos, penguins and all things cold lately so at least the weather cooperated. I imagine that Nessa wasn't the only one that went home and "helped" shovel though. When we left daycare I fell for Nessa telling me she would stay standing (versus sit or lay down in the snow) when we didn't put her snow pants on (she was VERY bundled up except no snow pants) ... So I agreed that she could help shovel for awhile rather than going right in the house. Well, within minutes she was covered in snow of course. Every time I mentioned going inside she would scream. Fifteen minutes later I dragged her in. Her thick sweat pants are luckily pretty thick and warm as no wetness wet through and she was just normal cold and not dangerous cold. And while the driveway and sidewalk looked pretty good when Shawn came home, he could also tell that Nessa had helped. :-)
Tonight we're going to brave the cold to go out to eat, see a play, and meet friends for drinks afterwards. I politely informed Shawn that there should be no question about parking and walking from place to place. We will always park as close as possible to where we go tonight. And layers will rule over fashion (as if I was ever not practical these days ... I'm so glad I went for the practical and LONG coat from Land's End earlier this winter ... and so glad I found a hat that I like that fits my big head too, lol).
Tomorrow it's another laid back weekend day ... good for catching up on lots of normal household chores, snuggling by the fire, and rumour has it that there is some football on too. ;-)
With any luck I'll catch up on all of the photos I have to post ... until then you can always see what new things I've posted on flickr (the other night I even added descriptions to most of the new ones) -- http://www.flickr.com/photos/brooksgroth
Stay warm...
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