the ocean always dreamed blue dreams

I love the dichotomy between my southernmost point of origin and my lit-net friends who live in the north. Yesterday I wrote about my exultation at getting an unexpected day off. Today I'm going continue with information about how we are surviving the worst cold front in Texas in about a decade. I hope people realize that this is tongue-in-cheek, but just in case I'll go ahead and tell you.

I survived the night. I wore my bathrobe to bed and slept under a comforter, a down blanket (it's not really down, but has some alternate substance in it), and two blankets. I was snug, to say the least.

When I got up I checked the temperature. My son had turned it down last night and it was set at 65, but the temperature inside read 63. It's very toasty upstairs, however. Now downstairs is another matter. My front door is at least one reason for this. I am hoping to get a new one, maybe in March. Apparently you have to paint them yourself, so I want to do that when I have some time, and of course when it's a little warmer. It might have to wait until this summer. I think I'll have to have the door frame fixed. It is not snug. In fact, if you stand in front of it you can see daylight through the cracks. So I wouldn't say my home is exactly energy efficient. Or probably very safe from intruders. One night we were locked out accidentally and I asked my son to give the front door a good kick and that popped the door right open. I can't remember if we had the deadbolt locked or just the lock on the door knob, but either way I wouldn't say that the door is exactly doing it's job in keeping us safe. Stupid door!

Fortunately we have not had any electricity outages. And we are fortunate, as The Electric Reliability Council of Texas has ordered rotating outages to ease the load of the power grid. They are supposed to last abut 45 minutes, but I haven't noticed it happening here yet. Not so in most of the communities surrounding me from Lewisville to Plano, Denton,Garland and Cedar Hill. The city of Dallas has requested exemption from the outages as they are hosting a number of Super Bowl related events. The city of Arlington, which is where the Super bowl will be held, reportedly has not. Very humane of them, I say.

Alright, my right hand is a block of ice for some reason. I'm going to go warm up, maybe do some painting. Hopefully we are going to watch "The Hangover" later, and I personally would really like to watch an episode or two of "Northern Exposure."

I'm thinking pancakes for dinner tonight, beans tomorrow, then I really have to get to the store. So much for preparedness. They are predicting that it might get to 8 degrees tonight, which would be a record. The predicted temperature this weekend is for the '50's.

Hasta la vista, and stay warm!


Update:It did not get to 8 degrees that night. I don't think it has been colder than 19 degrees at any point. It may have gotten to 16 degrees that night, but I'm not sure as I was sleeping.