You Know it's Cold When....

Given the weather, I felt the need to vent in a safe warm place, hence prepare yourself for a rant against the cold.  

10) You know it's cold when...the temperature is not so high that it would be allowed into a PG-13 movie.   I'd like the air to at least be able to be carded, if not collecting social security.  

9) Given the choice between bringing up the trash cans --an easy one shot task twice a week, and doing the dinner dishes every night, there is a mad fight to take on K.P.

8) You notice that your car doesn't have heated seats.  

7) There is a deer living next to your van to avoid the wind.  

6) None of these are made up.  

5) Children ask for hot chocolate not because they want to drink it, but because they want to warm their hands while they still are wearing gloves.

4) Threats about driving until you find some place warm go so far as to google the closest place with 70 degree weather. (Hint: Brownsville is looking pretty good).  

3) You serve oatmeal. Several of the kids hate oatmeal.  No one complains because it's warm.

2) The stupid rallying cry of Olaf the snowman in Frozen, "Let's go save summer." sounds reasonable.

1) Describing how cold it is involves negative integers and no small amount of suppressed expletives.

I'm Fed Up

I want warm. I'm tired of winter. I don't care that the little rodent in Pennsylvania saw his shadow. I don't care that it's February and this is normal for this time of year.  I don't care that the winter Olympics (which I love) are being run in the Winteriest place outside of Disney's movie Frozen. I'm tired of it.  I'm tired of air that hurts when I breath it and shoveling and black ice and the most unpleasant of all, rain that won't commit to snow but makes everything infinitely worse than cold, cold and wet.

I want warm.  I want unreasonably toasty.  I want I'm debating if I should use a sheet as a cover when I sleep cozy.  I want a warm that makes people worry the sun is expanding and preparing to boil fifteen galaxies beyond ours.  That's right, I want fry an egg heat index melt in the shade blinded by the glare so hot it's painful type warm.  The kind of heat that you can see evaporating the asphalt.

So I'm pulling down the shades and vowing the following until the temperature approaches human levels of what one might not merely consider tolerable but tropical. 

Until temperatures become bearable, the following rules/edicts/unreasonable demands shall be in effect.

10) Anyone who asks for ice for a drink will be put outside.  Harvest your own.

9) I'm lacing every meal with Tabasco until something internal melts.

8) Bribes may be necessary to get me to leave the house.  Leave your offering, chocolate, the gift of fire, and hot chocolate.  I'll get back to you when it's 60 degrees or hotter. Maybe.

7) There aren't enough blankets in the world. So yes, I am using three comforters in addition to my sweats. 

6) Welcoming anyone who has a fever to the house as a heat source. 

5) In Alaska, they have three dog nights.  Here, we have a 4 kid minimum.

4) My new favorite spot to write is up against the dryer.

3) No one ever says, "Yeah, but it's a dry cold." 

2) Jack Frost and I are not on speaking terms.  Whoever is the anti-Jack Frost, the mythical creature that goes about creating spots of sweltering summer?  Him, I want to talk to...stat!

1)  When the weather channel is dealing in negative numbers, I don't deal in the real world.  

Hibernating and dangerous until Spring shows its face.