Week 8 - So Brutally Cold!

What can I say about a week that had the lowest temps I've ever experienced. Good thing I was working from home so could stay cozy. Or did I?

UNL announced on Sunday night that all in person classes were cancelled due to the cold but staff still had to work. Monday was a holiday but it's one of the ones we give up in order to get the week off at Christmas so it was work as usual. I enjoyed watching my cats watching TV as I worked at my computer. They were cooped up inside so were very into it. Tot jumped from the cat tower to get up close and personal. Ha!

The high temp on Monday was -4 so even if the library had been open, I wouldn't have gone anyway. With my fridge full of food, socks on the needles and plenty to watch, I had absolutely no reason to leave. We were being asked to conserve energy so I lit candles between my comfy chair and my bedroom to light my way to bed. I even turned off my deck Christmas tree, which is my happy night light and is on 24/7.

The actual temp Tuesday morning was -28 and the news was full of warnings of rolling blackouts due to too much demand for electricity. I was working away that morning, sitting in my nightie in the sun when the electricity went off at 8:40. They said the blackouts would be 30-60 minutes and I was warm sitting in the direct sun so I didn't go back to bed, which had been my plan. My landline still worked so I called work to say I was down and then called Carolyn, who was on vacation so was home. Well, the blackout was an hour and 45 minutes so it was getting pretty cold by the time the power came back on. My house is well insulated and has good replacement windows but the temp inside had dropped 7 degrees in less than 2 hours. I was very happy when power was restored. Other than filling the bird feeders and getting the mail, I stayed inside. The high temp for the day was zero.

It was warmer Wednesday with a double digit high of 14 but it was gray and gloomy so felt even colder. I did a zoom training class that afternoon. I had high hopes for Thursday, when it would be sunny and even warmer.

And it was! With the sun beaming and a high of 22, it felt like we'd made it through the polar vortex. Since my car had barely started last Friday when I went to the post office, I started my car at lunch (started much easier) and let it run for an hour in the sun in the driveway. I had used the last of my birdseed that afternoon so my plan was to drive to the farm store after work for more. I planned to go to Lincoln on the weekend, figuring that would really charge my battery.

It felt SO good to get out of the house Thursday after work. My backyard birds, which I've thoroughly enjoyed watching, had gone through 80 pounds of birdseed in the past 3 weeks so I headed to the farm store north of town to replenish. They had none, except for the super pricy little gourmet bags. So I headed to Fremont in search of birdseed, which I found at that branch of the same store, and since I was there, I hit Goodwill and Aldi. Now I really had no reason to leave with my food replenished and my battery well charged.

We had no morning zoom on Friday, I got my delayed grab and go lunch and then I had a 2 hour zoom helping some users with a database they'd inherited. At 5:00, I got up and started cleaning because Helen was coming Saturday morning to make me breakfast for my birthday, which had been delayed from 2 weekends ago due to, you guessed it, weather. After spending a chunk of time neatizing the house, I did my bare minimum cleaning of bathroom and floors - sweeping and vacuuming. When I finally sat back down, I found a message from Helen cancelling for Saturday. Oh well. At least the house was clean.

And with all my chores done, I decided to start clearing out the spare room. This lead to lots of yarn sorting, which is always fun and the sun beams into my front room this time of year so I was lovely and bright. Between sorting through boxes from the spare room, there was lots of knitting, of course. I ended the week shoveling snow that was only supposed to be a trace was more like 3". I did consider leaving it to melt but went out in a t-shirt and slippers to just shovel the deck and ended up doing the whole driveway. I did grab a coat when I made it to the side door of the house but still had slippers on the whole time. It was 60 degrees warmer than earlier in the week and was still right at freezing but that felt downright balmy. It can only get warmer, right?