Highlights from a winter to remember

I didn't realize how cold it has been until I jumped into my car after work on a 45 degree, sunny afternoon.  Went to put on some lipbalm that had been sitting in the car and accidentally smeared it all over my face because it was melty.  Then felt the joy rush through my body- "The lipbalm is melty!!!"  That moment of joy made me realize how seriously frozen we have been.

There were a few highlights however.

Once, while walking outside with Eli for a block on a brittle night, Eli yelled out, "My face!  It's frozen!  I feel like I just got a bad botox injection!"  I love the mind of the 14 year old boy.  You just never now what you are going to get.

On another day, as a blizzard threatened from the West and temperatures dropped I stopped by my local library- midday on a weekday- and it was packed!  This is how Minnesotans prepare for an emergency. Grocery store lines?  Probably not- but the library was a mob scene.

During one of the first school cancellizations for cold, the boys and I met up with Amy and her three boys at the Y to get out some energy.  We grabbed a cart of plastic balls and locked ourselves into a racketball court.  It is amazing we survived.  That dodgeball game was brutal.  It just kept going.  At one point, Amy tried throwing the ball discuss-style and proclaimed herself to be in immense pain.  So of course I had to try it.  I don't know if it's something new due to being in my forties, but damn- the blood or something shot through my arm and into my hand.  Made a snapping sound.  Damn thing hurt for hours.  Funny in retrospect, and at the time.  We finished with relay races and elbow tag.  The hearty laughing gave me one of my best ab workouts of the year.

After one big snow we gathered with Amy and crew to make a snow sculpture.  Started with a plan to make a reindeer using two trees as antlers.  Kind of turned into Donkey from Shrek.  If we had tried to make Donkey, we would have probably ended up with a reindeer.



One of the later 'cold days' with school cancelled coincided with the first day we could start using our kitchen.  All other surprise days off of school were still lovely, but we were getting a little cabin fever-y compacted into our truncated living room with no kitchen to use.  Didn't stop us from hosting a couple fabulous game days with the boys' classmates- but it wasn't super comfy.  So when a Friday rolled around, and school was cancelled, and the kitchen usable, I was in hog heaven.  Made muffins, bread, pumpkin bread, all by about 10am.

One night I ran over to the alley neighbors to deliver a loaf of pumpkin bread- the start of my thankyou for the dinners provided when we were sans kitchen.  Usually I just have to go out my door, across the yard, down the steps and through their yard to their side door.  Could do it in my sleep.  But on this day it was an obstacle course.  Our back yard is a labyrinth of paths around construction equipment, then I went down our luge-like iced up stairs, past snow drifts that towered over my head, through a hedge row of snow drifts to their gate, which doesn't open, so they have dug snow steps up and over, through their yard where the clothesline hit me in the chest- I was that high up on the compacted snow.  Finally made it, with a smile on my face even.

And the last highlight- that even on the most bitter of cold days (and there were plenty to choose from) you could always walk on the sunny side of the street, which made things a little better!