I SO miss the warmer weather. I could hardly stand to go feed the last few days. My cheeks felt like they were going to freeze off just in that short time. And the wind, ugh! I hate the wind. . .

So I'm definitly a warm weather person. : )

Melissia

Before I built a greenhouse cooler weather was a nice change of pace. When I was younger winter was when my group of friends did all our camping and hiking.

As I get in the more relaxing phase of life, I despise winter. I despise cold, wind chill, and that evil 4 letter word s--w!

I have good friends in Minnesota that love the nasty white stuff and enjoy winter. They s--w ski and dog sled. They are very good friends, but are also big loons. :-)

The thing we have in common is the breed of dog we own. Here's a card I made to send out to them this Christmas with our 2 American Eskimo dogs.

My wife and I would pack up and move south tomorrow if it weren't for Amber and her gymnastics and friends she has had since diapers. My dad had a job that required moving every 2-3 years as I grew up. I literally hated that with a passion. So I won't do that to my little girl.

It hit 16 here for a low. Jerry came out and checked the bees this morning. They are well set to get through the winter without any supplemental feeding.

I noticed they are talking possible ice storm Monday - Wednesday.

I'm looking forward to a wonderfully warm spring, summer, and fall.

Ohhh, it's too cold to be comfortable. I think the older I get, the worse it gets. My hands... my feet... they all just HURT. Add to that an old, drafty house, and I'm not a happy chick myself! I've been spending most of my time wrapped up in a blanket with my little guy, watching Christmas specials! GOOD TIMES... when I can get him to sit still!

We're thinking that this is gonna be a bad winter for us... we normally don't get much in the way of snow or ice. Lord... four years ago we were still mowing in December! But they're calling for snow flurries early next week, and I'm nervous about it. Considering we don't really know how to deal with it, ya know? (Driving, I mean.)

Of course I'm ready for warmer weather... I've got STUFF to plant!! :)

Melissia,

Sometimes it is all I can do to drag myself outside to feed the animals, break the layer of ice on their waterers and add fresh water in the early morning cold. I always feel frozen by the time I get back inside.

Randy,

I like snow.....well, I like the way it looks. I don't like having it fall here, but then we get way more sleet, freezing rain, freezing fog, etc. here than snow and all that other stuff is so much more annoying and hazardous.

I've been watching the forecast for next week and I don't like it. Beaumont, Texas, had 3" of snow yesterday.....I bet that was a great shock to them (and, unfortunately to their plants). I don't know if they are zone 8 or 9, but it doesn't really matter at this point because the snow/cold are a problem either way. DS told me he heard on the radio that snow was falling in New Orleans.....they need a new city slogan like "New Orleans...the city that can't catch a break".

Love the Christmas card. I bet those dogs love the cold weather.

Southern,

Hope the swelling is going down and that the pain is receding.

I agree that the older we get, the more bothersome the cold. I look at the teenagers and 20-somethings out running around all day in nothing more than a long-sleeved shirt and ask myself "What are they thinking?" but I know I was the same way at that age.

Next week's weather is looming over us all like a big ugly abominable snowman. I, for one, hope the forecasters are wrong, but they all seem to be seeing the same patterns indicating the same probabilities.

Oooh, we are up in the 40s now and, while that's not exactly warm, it is a big improvement over the temperature at 7 a.m.

Dawn

We lived in northern Indiana for about ten years when our kids were small. Terrie was 12 and Chris was 11 when we moved back to Oklahoma. How I hated it there! Snow on the ground before Halloween. Everybody had to wear coats over costumes to trick or treat. Incredible wind chill. Snow upon snow upon snow -- it didn't melt in between snows. The snow plow kept the roads clear but buried my AMC Gremlin every time. Not completely melted till around Mother's Day.

On the up side, we only needed air conditioning about one week out of the whole summer, and we could get by without it by spending most of that week in the basement. Because of the sandy soil and good drainage, most homes had full basements.

DH had to carry a shovel, rock salt, sand and some old tarps in the back of his truck in case he slid off the road and got stuck, or had to stop and help someone else who did. Everybody had studded snow tires and carried tire chains to boot. A few times he had to stay at work in East Chicago and sleep on a desk because visibility was just too bad to try to get home. We got caught in a snow storm one night, coming home from a party. We literally could not see the road in front of us and I was closer to freaking out than I had ever been in my life. We were 30 miles from home. If it hadn't been for that truck that got in front of us that had it's lights all on all around the back of the truck, we would've been in a ditch in no time. We had a CB radio at the time and the trucker talked with us. He was going to Valparaiso, which was just a little past where we lived. So we followed that wonderful guy all the way to our home. Angels come in all forms. I was really glad the kids were staying all night at DH's brother's house.

The kids would ride the bus to school, bundled in layers, with knitted scarves over their faces because the wind chill would burn their tender bare skin. Gloves inside mittens. Two pair of socks inside shoes inside galoshes. Brrrrrr!

Hard to get to the grocery store, and to get home sometimes. Luckily we had a well-stocked pantry and deep-freeze. One time DD and I both had strep throat and had to make our way to the doctor's office in the bitter cold. I stayed in so much I'd have cabin fever every winter.

We moved there because DH's brother lived there and said that wages were so much higher there. He failed to mention that so was the cost of living.

After getting used to that, we found winters here quite balmy. Been back here now since 1979 and I don't like the cold and ice any better than anyone else, but I sure do appreciate the fact that we don't get all that snow and bitter cold. And that we do get some warm days even in January.

ME! ME! ME! I WANT HOT WEATHER BACK!

I just hate winter. And I can't stay inside and hide from it. I have 50 cows to feed every single day after work....What makes it worse is that it gets dark early too. How depressing.

85 degrees would feel so nice now.

Great card Randy! But don't even mention that I word... When the weather man says Ice it just makes me sick at my stomach.

Lynn

When I was younger (under 40) I loved winter. I liked ice skating, sledding , hot apple cider, and all of those fun things. After I broke my back and had Harrington rods things changed a bit. When I get cold, I get really cold. I think that 9 inches of stainless steel down both sides of my spine gets cold and it just doesn't let me warm up. I just kind of shake all over. I have lived in Colorado, Alaska, Ohio, etc. but northern Michigan can make anyone hate snow. We were at K.I. Sawyer AFB near Marquette MI in the upper pennisula of Michigan. Some days you went out the back door because you couldn't get the front door open. The next day you went out the front door so you could shovel your way out the back door because the wind blew from a different direction. When it snowed, you bundled up and took you snow shovel out and started at your door, then you had to keep an area large enough to park on your grass near enough to the building to keep your car heater plugged into electricity then you shoveled the street along with 8-10 neighbors, so you could get to the main street where the snow plow ran. They cleared parking lots at work locations but not housing. Sometimes they had to truck the snow away. In the winter of 71-72 we got 304 inches of snow. If you were careful how you shoveled your parking place in your front yard, you could lay plywood across it and have a garage. LOL ........and break-up, now that's another story..............of mud, mud, mud. We had moved there from Alaska and my children had always played outside in winter. Although we had snow on the ground most of winter in Alaska we had little accumulation. If they tried to play in Michigan, they would take three steps on the snow and on the fourth they would break through and bury up to their shoulders. It was a good thing we had a basement playroom because they could not play out. I really don't pay much attention to snow here, but I don't like the ice storms and being without electricity. I also hate what ice does to the trees.

Maybe we should just be happy that we did not have New Orleans' weather today: eight inches of snow. Can you imagine? I'm guessing their plants aren't exactly happy campers right now.

Yep, Michigan and Northern Indiana have very similar weather. All that lake-effect snow! I hear ya about the snow being so high. We had a 6' chain link fence between us and our neighbors because we had little children and they had a Doberman named "Useless". They had him tied up most of the time he was outside, but there were times when he would be on my back porch because he had just walked across the surface of the snow, which was as high as the fence.

And I had forgotten seeing trucks hauling off snow, but that was a common sight in the winter. Lots of people had snow plow attachments that you put on the front of your truck or jeep, and lots of people had snowmobiles.

I've never lived anywhere except north Texas and southern OK and I don't think I could handle all that cold and snow. Y'all are tougher than me.

DH's family is from Pennsylvania and they stay too cold in Pennsylvania for me.....I am even "cold" when we are there in the summertime. We went to Niagra Falls once, and it was the 4th of July, and in the 60s and foggy and misty. It didn't feel like the kind of July 4th I'm used to.

While in Buffalo, NY, I noticed a lot of houses had two mailboxes.....one at a normal height for the warm season and one 6' to 8' above the ground for cold, snowy weather. You can imagine what a shock it was for this southern gal to realize snow could pile up so high for weeks or even months on end. I don't understand how their shrubs and perennials can handle the weight of the snow and ice. Every time we have an ice storm here, we have major damage.

When our son was small and we lived in Ft. Worth, we had friends in the Cub Scout community who were transferred to Great Falls, Montana. Their children all had been born and reared in Fort Worth's mild winters. Imagine their shock when they experienced a Montana winter. Even in the summer, she'd tell me how excited they got when late June or early July rolled around and the kids no longer had to wear SWEATSHIRTS under their baseball uniforms. Of course, by August, the nights were cold again, but they sure enjoyed July.

Any cold weather is just about too much for me. I am a cold weather baby--I just want to layer on tons of warm clothing and stay inside with a nice cup of hot tea or cocoa. When I absolutely must go to a fire in cold weather, I dress as if going to the North Pole. My favorite cold-weather clothing? Battery-heated socks. They are bulky and ugly, but they keep my feet warm. And, when we are at a fire, all the firefighters want is hot food and beverages, and water and Gatorade.....no one is looking at my ugly (but toasty warm) socks.

I buy those little Hot Hands handwarmers by the case at Sam's and mostly use them to keep my hands warm at fires. Last year, though, four of us firefighter's wives/daughters went shopping on a very cold, blustery day and we all had handwarmers in our pockets as we went store to store at the outdoors shopping center. We were pretty happy campers, except that our faces were frozen. It would have been smarter to go to an enclosed shopping mall, but they are in short supply here.

Next week's weather is going to be bitterly cold across most of the country, and probably most of our state as well. Y'all may feel like you're back in Michigan or Indiana. : )

How many more days until the spring equinox?

Dawn

I loved in Alaska twice for four years each time. When we came back to "the lower 48" the last time we still had 3 children that were school. After a few days of winter weather, my daughter came in and said, "Mom, we all need to sit down and talk tonight". Thinking they had a serious problem, I told Dad and we all sat down to hear this big problem. They said, "You know we all have good warm coats that were great for Alaska, but we are freezing to death waiting for the bus, and we have got to have new coats." I thought it was so funny that they moved from Alaska, but were freezing in Oklahoma.......but I understood. They had just not experienced that wet cutting wind for so long and it was getting to them. The next day we went for new longer coats.

I really don't want to be picky, or ask for much, but just 60's would be just fine for me. ;)

Cold sure hurts arthritis.

Moni

Moni,

You have arthritis?

The 60s sure sound nice....and we are almost there today. It is 57, sunny and there is very little wind here today. I think tomorrow will be even better, except for those pesky winds that are supposed to be high.

On Sunday, though, it all goes downhill.

Dawn

Yup, sure do, along with some other nasty health issues. I just normally ignore them all. Hard to do, when it is cold, and sometimes I have to wear gloves even indoors.

I come to dislike winter more and more.

Moni