"It's" happening again. It happens every year, but this year it's coming a little later.
It's the cold.
Every year it takes time to get adapted to the deep cold that moves over us like a layer of ice. Every year it flows into every crack and crevice, testing everything within it's path. Your coats and coverings, your house, your car, your life.
Today the kids took the small car to school as per normal. They didn't quite make it when it overheated and they lost all their antifreeze. They called and I went to rescue them, added water and got it home. But I couldn't find the hole the water was spraying out of, even after letting it run for an hour, couldn't find the weakness.
Tonight I went to get Hillary from work and threw on my leather gloves. There is a small hole over one finger which is usually ok, but tonight the cold flowed into that hole, nearly freezing that one little spot on my finger, till it hurts.
I've got to get the plastic over the house windows ASAP now that the cold is coming. I've got to make sure the car block heaters are working and I've got to find a way to plug in two cars this year, a first for us. And it's not as simple as a splitter plug.
You've got to start thinking differently. You need to be thinking ahead before you leave the house. What will I need to stay warm. What will I need if I get into trouble -if the car breaks. Always thinking, always planning.
Then there is the simple fact that the cold hurts, it's uncomfortable. Even after you cover up, you breathe it into your lungs, it freezes your nose, makes your nose run. And when you stand out in it like I was doing today working on the car, it chills you down to your bones. Then you go inside and warm up. And as you warm up you suddenly realize how tired you are, how the cold made your body exhausted, and you fall asleep sitting on the kitchen chair.
It will get better, once we get used to it, once we get acclimatized.
It's just the getting there that's so miserable.
Dare I mention we've been sweltering in a heatwave lately? :)
ReplyDeleteYou guys must be tough out there in deepest, most frozen Canada. Makes me feel a complete wuss complaining about the relative cool dampness of Oxfordshire.
ReplyDeleteWell, like Lauralea always says, it's better to be too cold than too hot. At least with cold you can put something on!
ReplyDeleteWith Hot, there's only so much you can take off, and not be arrested.
:-)
Learn to embrace the winter. It can be your friend. Taking up cross-country skiing is the first step (of course that doesn't help when it's cold but snowless).
ReplyDeleteInvest in some timers for plugging in your vehicles at night. You only really need to have them plugged in about three hours in advance of when you want to drive away, so that extra six or seven hours of saved electricity can REALLY add up, especially with two cars.
ReplyDelete