Winter Joys

Well it finally happened. It snowed! Things sure look different. In a few short hours the landscape changed from dull, drab grey to bright sparkling white.

The sun shines often here on the prairies. The bright clear days can be deceiving. Sun shining, snow twinkling and bitter bitter cold. In fact, we went in quite a short time from above 0 temperatures to -26 Celsius, with the wind chill. Some American readers may not know what I mean by wind chill. The wind chill factor is the apparent temperature felt on exposed skin due to wind. Kind of like the Heat Index, only opposite.

The wind bites at our ears as we walk Athena to school through the school grounds. Actually only bites at my ears. The other two wear toques (hats). Not me. Too stupid to do that. Paul says people in Saskatchewan care little about what they look like when the temperature drops. They care only about staying warm. I am working on a lamb's wool scarf for myself. It is almost finished. Hopefully by Monday when we have to make the trek again. If not, I'm wearing a toque.

Athena has decided to call all of her winter gear her "warmies". Great idea.

We have Paul's Firefighters Christmas Party tomorrow night. At least the food will be good as he was the one to arrange it. We always do that gift exchange thing where one person can take the others gift. Not a fan of that, especially since we have to stand up in a line in front of everyone. Then there are the speeches by the Fire Commissioner and the Mayor and whoever else wants to speak, often the reigning MLA. Snooze. Then I go home to relieve the sitter and Paul goes back to play chaperone to a bunch of drunken people. Geesh.

We have been reading all sorts of Christmas themed books around here. One of Athena's favorites is Olive the Other Reindeer. We made her ears that look like Olive's and she dressed in white an brown. She loves make believe. She even made this picture of Olive. It was actually a collaboration between the two of us. Then she watched the movie bye Matt Groening (Simpson's Fame) on You Tube. You've gotta love You Tube for Christmas Specials. My VCR is so old that I can't tape anything past channel 99 so this is our way to get the specials in.

This weekend we plan to do a lot of relaxing. At least I do.Paul will likely hit the gym a few times. I might bake some gingerbread men too. And there's knitting. There's always knitting.