Welcome, Warm Front!

It has been cold here since I got back from Christmas. Now I realize that technically it gets colder in many places, but relatively speaking it got much colder and stayed cold for much longer than we're used to dealing with here. And we had a wind chill going on that made me think of pioneers freezing to death while trying to cross the plains.

It was so cold that my furnace came on in the middle of the night to keep the house up to 50. Normally it stays off all night long and the temp inside only drops to around 55 by morning. It was so cold that Keystone Lake froze over - not ice skating frozen by any means, but I have never seen Keystone Lake frozen across the entire surface. It was so cold that I put an extra blanket on with my down comforter, which I've never had to do before.

The only time I remember being colder was once up in Kansas. That was before universities went to auto deposit, and it was the day to pick up our student loan checks, so we braved the sub-zero wind chill to hike the 100 yards or so from the parking lot to the underground tunnels into the student union. And in that short 100 yards, I felt so cold that I thought I was going to by physically ill and my bones ached. This felt similar, only I'm no longer so desperate for anything that I would spend that amount of time outside in this weather!

But today, oh, beautiful Sabbath day. Today is above freezing. On the way home from church I saw that ice on Keystone Lake has started to break up a bit. Today I am sitting in my home dressed in slippers, sweats and a sweatshirt, and I'm not freezing. Today the cats decided it was warm enough to go out instead of just whining at the door.

And the best part? There's not a single day in the 10-day forecast with a high below freezing. There are even a couple of days in the 50s! I may barbecue to celebrate. :)