BRRRRRRRRRRRR!

I am a blessed woman indeed. The temperature outside is 23 degrees with a forecast that it will get into the teens tonight. Rather than face the cold and drive to the office, I decided to work from the comfort of my easy chair in front of the fireplace. I love the technology (and the boss) that makes that possible.

One of the few things my husband and I do not see eye to eye on is the weather. If the temperature falls below 75 degrees he starts to moan about possible frost bite. That same temperature is nearing my threshold for concern about heat exhaustion. Since he is the one responsible for shoveling the snow, he won the battle on living in a climate where snow is a once in a decade (if God must) scenario.

It wasn't always so. Back in the early '80's the company Jerry worked for transferred us from our lifetime home of Houston, Texas to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (One of the perks of living there was that I learned how to spell "Milwaukee".) We arrived in November.

My first observation about weather in Wisconsin was that the sun does not shine in November. We could not contain the excitement when it began to snow on Thanksgiving. We reveled in our first ever white Christmas, went sledding in January, ice skaing in February, began to whine about the cold in March and were positively mortified that there was still snow on the ground at Memorial Day. Jerry contends there are three seasons in Wisconsin: July, August and winter.

But, the real lesson on cold weather came that Christmas as our entire country was in a weather pattern much like we are seeing today. The record breaking cold front has the temperature on Christmas Eve hovering around the negative teens, with a north wind dropping the wind chill factor to 80 below zero. It was unlike anything we had ever experienced. The opportunity allowed us warm weather fiends to learn a few significant lessons:

1. Our new definition of cold would be when you could make ice cube in the garage faster than in the freezer. (We tested the theory.)
2. You cannot breathe air that cold. That's why all those people have scarves and hats that cover their entire faces and make them look like mummies.
3. Your car actually can freeze to the ground. The tires have a flat spot on them until they warm up. That was the "thud, thud, thud" sound we heard for the first few miles.
4. Nothing wards off the cold like a cheery fire.

The weather in Texas never quite matches what we saw in Wisconsin. But, this week it is cold enough to annoy Jerry and delight me. And, as is often true, I am reminded how fortunate I am to be married to a man with the good sense to not listen when I tell him how wonderful it would be to live in Wisconsin again.

Furthermore, if two lie down together they keep warm, but how can one be warm alone? Ecclesiastes 4:11