Week 6 - SO Over It!

Have I mentioned the weather? How much I’m hating this cold? It’s hard to get out of bed, never mind go to work, when you wake up to below zero temps every morning. Real temps, not wind chills. And while I’d been bemoaning the lack of snow, when we got 4” of snow this past week, it was on top of bitter cold temps and even colder wind chills so the beauty of the snow was no consolation. It’s official. I’m over winter and counting the days until spring. 39, in case you’re curious. I’m thinking spring and planning accordingly. I ordered seeds. Lots and lots of seeds. Someday I’ll be able to plant them.

The snow hit Tuesday during the day and I did the weather weenie thing and left work early so I wouldn’t have to drive in the dark with snow. Have you experienced the vortex effect with headlights into full on snow? Not fun. The only upside was I was home by 4:00 and so had a completely productive evening, getting most of the not quite finished on the weekend chores done. That felt good. But shoveling the next morning when the wind chill was -20? Nope, not fun. But I was pretty proud that I made it to work before many people from Lincoln. And luckily Dodie had called and we’d cancelled lunch so I brought one and didn’t have to venture out. Because when Nora was out with a sick kid on Monday and so we weren’t going out for my birthday, I deemed it too cold to go buy lunch. I ate whatever I could find in my desk and the office – crackers, a cheese stick, almonds, a fiber bar, dates… All those high fiber snacks had consequences later on. Lesson learned. I brought 2 StarKist lunch packs to work the next day.

Also in the not fun category – driving in snow with crappy tires. I took my car in on Thursday afternoon and got new tires. The ones they took off were not even 2 years old but they claim the shim my tire needed this past summer had caused the uneven wear. Whatever. I just feel better knowing I won’t blow a tire and freeze to death in a ditch. Money well spent. Hopefully.

On the topic of spending money, I also bought my ticket to France. $1700! Nothing fun about that but I’ll keep my eyes on the prize and call it good. I know the trip will be fantastic so whatever it takes to get there.

In non-weather news, I’ve made lots of knitting progress. The Monday Night Knitters are having a contest to finish up works in progress. You know me and external motivation – I finished 2 this week to add to the 1 from last week and am closing in on finishing a 4^th. Unfortunately, a chunk of Sunday was eaten up by yarn when I started looking for old projects and ended up organizing all the yarn in my spare room in the process. Sunday was supposed to be my chore day since I’d spent Saturday happily knitting next to Lori’s wood stove. At least then I was working on a pod for yet another door prize. It came out great so I’ll add it to the stack of prizes on my table (all from my house – yikes!) and to the 3 bags from other Friends of the Library that I picked up Saturday morning. I may not have cooked anything nor finished my chores but it was fun. The cleaning can wait and I won’t go hungry. That’s a given.

So, all in all, it was a productive week. I got a few things crossed off the list and lived through another arctic blast. Just 39 days to go. I can make it.