If It's Going to be THIS Cold...

It's friggin' cold here. Highs in the 30s, lows in the 20s...winds 15-20 knots, gusting into the 30s.

It's been like this since Thursday. It's going to be like this for a while.

Okay okay okay...I'm a wuss.

I grew up on the coast. When you live near water, cold temperature spells are pretty short-lived. Even in the coldest part of winter, your below-freezing spells are only 48 hours or so.

I went to college in central Pennsylvania, and that was my first time in my memory spending a long time in cold weather. And I didn't hear the end of it about what a wuss I was from the native Pennsylvanians and New Englanders who were used to blizzard conditions and weeks-at-a-time of overcast skies.

And in the 14 years since college, only 3 1/2 of those years were spent in cold climates: Seoul, Korea and Dayton, Ohio. The rest of the time was in the sunny South.

Until now. So here we are in Nebraska. Cold.

Long range forecasts are telling of the true arrival of winter. I brought in my plants, noticed all those little black bugs that crawled through my window screens are no longer and it's time to bring in the porch furniture. Organized the hats, scarves, mittens, gloves, balaclavas and snow pants in our makeshift "mudroom".

So we're ready for the snow. If it's going ot be this cold, at least make it fun with some snow.

PS: I love Calvin and Hobbes, especially the snow-related cartoons. I found this site which has a bunch (but not all) of the snow-series.