Life in the Slow Lane

Freezing Rain. That's a new one. The myth about 35 ways to say "snow" in Eskimo aside, I thought there was a pretty straight forward classification of precipitation. Rain, snow. And then that aberration called hail when the clouds are cold and the water molecules decide to dance a little bit of disco before the clouds let them drop. But today, we start out with freezing rain and then as it warmed up , we got hail. And then as it warms up more  later today, we're supposed to get snow. I feel like Obelix taping my head, saying, Toc, toc, toc. These Romans are crazy.

There is still so much to learn... like there is a different definition of perishables. I could have left the milk in the car all night... instead, it was the pineapple that suffered.

It's Black Friday in the rest of the world, but there is still a good deal of white in our Friday. SOS promises he can handle all three kids and sends me out once darkness falls to take advantage of Black Friday deals. The best one, of course, is getting to go out all by myself. I try to ignore the crunching, snapping sound of breaking ice as I pull on the car door handle. Halfway through the night I buy myself an Icee because if I'm going to be suffering a cold headache, I might as well be making my sweet tooth happy.

Surely the best part of living in a region with a real winter is you don't need to buy a second fridge just to host Thanksgiving dinner. And a close second is this: when your apartment approaches 450 degrees along with your oven, it is very easy to cool it down. But not too far down the list you will surely find that when you take the children on a morning walk and one of them slips getting both muddy and bloody, ice packs are as nearby as the closest snow bank.

A few weeks ago, a new acquaintance told me about "The Day" which happens every spring. "The Day" is the first day of the year where temperatures reach higher than 40 degrees. On this day, everyone goes outside to enjoy the warmth, wearing short sleeves. She laughed about how 40 degrees seems so warm after making it through the winter. Friends, today was above 40 degrees, and it was most assuredly not "The Day." At 4:30 when I raced the sun to our finish lines, I learned the important truth that a wet bicycle seat seems much colder than a frozen bicycle seat. Note to Self: When "The Day" comes, take a towel to dry off my seat before hitting the road. This is what 40 degrees looks like when you take a photo from a moving bicycle at dusk with a flip phone.

A warming trend! The snow has begun to melt and during the warmest part of the day, the eaves drip as if it is pouring rain. I wear three layers and flip flops to run errands and then we take a family night-time walk to enjoy the gorgeous moon. We play a game of ice soccer along the way.

I had really, really wanted to get a family photo for our Christmas card over the weekend. Yes, I made everyone stand out in the frigid wind to accomplish this. This is what 24 degrees looks like. Not quite what I had imagined... I had chosen our outfits so carefully! I'm still perfecting my cold weather biking attire. And then, it being sunny and all, I went for a bike ride. Yes, I nearly broke a fingernail trying to chip the ice off of my seat before sitting down. My bike during the snow fall. Fortunately, I still bike slowly enough that the ice and snow on my handle bars did not dramatically increase the wind chill factor.

On the third day of winter, it snowed and snowed. We got 4.5 inches of snow. Communities an hour south of us had 17 inches. SOS and CutieLittleBoy played out in it all morning while the rest of us stayed inside and listened to Curious George Goes to the Hospital five times. When the snow stopped and the roads were cleared, SOS and the kids unburied the car and then we all bundled up and drove to a coffee shop for hot drinks to celebrate.

On the second day of winter, it began snowing in earnest as soon as darkness fell. SOS ran the children outside to make mini-snowballs and have snow land on their tongues. I took photos from the safety of my bedroom window. And filmed first impressions when they returned.

On the first day of winter, a blustery wind all morning long ushered in snow flurries for the early afternoon. Before those snow flurries appeared, we made it a total of five minutes out at the park. I say "a total of" because during those five minutes, we came back inside once to put on coats because the children had not believed me when I said they needed to put on coats. The coats were insufficient. So the rest of the day we stayed inside where we keep the thermostat at 72.

(Note: This is completely tongue-in-cheek.) Everyone is always talking about the importance of being a Proverbs 31 Woman. It's a pretty hefty list of expectations for anyone to follow, so I've decided to start small and work on just one verse at a time. This year, I'm working on Proverbs 31:21 which says, " She is not afraid of snow for her household,  for all her household are clothed in  scarlet. " Go Badgers!