Really Really Cold

Two Things I Don't Like About Winter:

1. Darkness. When I leave the house, it's dark. When I drive home, it's dark. On Friday the fuel guy came to make a delivery and I went out front to talk to him and it occurred to me that I couldn't remember the last time I stood in front of my house in the daylight. I made a point to walk around the whole thing and saw where some bulbs had sent a few sprouts to peek out of the mud.

2. Cold Water. The original footprint of our house is pretty small and we have a kickass oil furnace that blasts cozy hot air out of three major vents in the front half of the house. My office room is the small bedroom and if I have the door closed it actually can get too hot in there. In the 50s the house was remodeled and expanded to the back, creating the large kitchen and laundry room that were among the major selling points for us. (The other being the giant finished basement with bathroom which is Bob's room, or as Kim calls it, "Bob's apartment.") The back part of the house has two lonely little heating vents so the kitchen and laundry room are the coolest parts of the house.

This morning I was getting my lunch ready, and I turned on the sink to wash my hands and it was like dipping them in glacier water. I hate wasting a gallon of water waiting for tepid just to wash my hands, but sheesh, that stuff is cold.

One Thing I Like About Winter:

1. Chilled Foods. We have a room attached to the garage that we call "the shop" but nothing remotely shoplike occurs out there. That's where most of my gardening stuff is, two bikes, tons of empty boxes, quite a few full boxes, camp gear, a chest freezer, and so forth.

Over the weekend I made a big pot of soup and after dinner it was way too hot to stick in the refrigerator. I put it out in the shop and an hour later, perfectly chilled. I probably could have left it out there all night but since there was room in the fridge brought it inside. One Thanksgiving we let the turkey brine out there. The flip side of this is that I have no idea what's in the chest freezer right now because every time I walk out there, I'm so cold I just grab the first thing that looks good and run back in. Not like I'm going to put on a coat (or sometimes even shoes) just to paw through all the frozen pizza flavors.

I also like that you can buy groceries and do 12 other errands and all the food is just fine in the trunk.