Minus, subtract, less than, below...

...put the word zero after any/all of the above, and that's my temperature today. Here's how warped a person becomes when dealing with such extremely cold temperatures; my response to this Saturday's (hopeful) forecast of 35 degrees was, "It's finally warming up!" In fact, by Friday it's gonna be 20 degrees and it feels like a heat-wave is coming on. So yeah, I know you guys think it's cold in California (Jamie said she woke up to a frigid 41 degrees yesterday---I love you Jamie-girl; I remember when I too thought that was cold), but 41 degrees and this Minnesotan transplanted snow-girl was happily riding her bike still outside! (Can you believe it? The same girl who wore her lobster claw gloves when the temps went below 50 in California!)

It was way below 0 with the wind-chill yesterday morning on my walk to work (-27 degrees---so my -32 boot rating may indeed get tested before winter officially starts)...and yeah, I was bundled up to the gils, but I crunched new paths in the snow and the only sounds you hear on the quiet streets is that crunch. The river is just about frozen now...just a tiny stream up the middle has running water and I can see the thick sheets of ice on the sides as I crunch over the bridge. I usually follow Mike's steel-studded tire track marks to work.

Today I'm baking almond bark pretzels and another little treat with my Minnesota Mom! I shared two of the four sugar pine cones that my California Mom sent and apparently if you bake them for a bit the sugar sap melts and glazes over the cones. (MN Mom did some research on the internet!) I can't wait to see how they turn out.

And I know you guys all think the pictures of snow look lovely. I think they do too. But living with the cold and lovely snow, and looking at pictures of it sent to you from hundreds (thousands) miles away is different. (Not bad or good....just different) This is cold that hurts. But like I said, we're expecting a balmy 35 on Saturday---We even broke a record of cold yesterday! More of that un-seasonal stuff.

We are supposed to warm up to 3 degrees today, but the weather guy wasn't very convincing...at least they say "bitterly cold" now. I know what Minus, subtract, less than, and below the zero mark feels like though. (sigh) Stay warm---