It's a Red Bag Day!

Woke this morning to -20 (think Anders Celsius) ... and that was before windchill ... and the wind was whipping. The house was 14 C and that was only because the furnace had kicked on during the night. Thank goodness Jack had the insight to install those heater fans in the bathrooms for us when he built the house ... I'd never get Garrick into the shower before school otherwise as it usually takes four or five hours to get the temperature inside back up to 20 C when it is this cold outside.

So, today is what we have coined in the Ellwood house as 'a red bag day'. In other words, it is so cold that I will spend most of the day in my one piece, red fleece 'bag' (with a hole for each foot). Because it would be hard to imagine the beauty of this bag simply from my description, I have included an oh so flattering picture of me modeling it for you! Good thing I won't have any unexpected visitors ... although the Jehovah's witnesses did manage to find me about a month ago.

You know it is cold when ... the olive oil in the basement 'store' has started to congeal ... the lake, which has a layer of ice in some areas, is generating steam because the water, which is definitely below 32 F, is so much warmer than the air ... your fingers begin to get numb when you wash your hands and the hot water still hasn't reached the kitchen faucet even after you've soaped and rinsed and sang three rounds of Row, Row, Row your Boat ... your nose hairs freeze in less than a minute when outside!

I went out this morning to warm up the truck ... and put the ash can in the back. While I didn't actually expect that I would need it this morning, it has become a kind of morning ritual for me (and an insurance policy). Then, I brought a few pieces of wood up onto the deck for later. By the time I returned to the kitchen, I was beginning to lose some of the feeling in my fingers. As we left for the bus stop, Garrick said as he walked out the door, "It's not too bad out here." He then threw his backpack into the truck, grabbed the ice scrapper, spent 20 seconds scraping a small area on the front windshield, just enough so I could see, threw the ice scrapper in the back and said as he jumped into the truck, "I think my nose hairs are frozen."

We arrived at the bus stop. Just as the top of the bus appeared over the hill, the neighbors turned up. George got out of his truck to retrieve the newspaper ... he was wearing his mukluks (snow boots); a flannel shirt, which was unbuttoned; and no gloves. Guess I have some toughening up to do ... wimp that I am!

Karyn

P.S. We never even hit -15 C today (that's 4 F)!