Emotional Weather Report

Okay. So, the Midwest is going through this whole Polar Vortex thing. We've had plenty of snow and the last couple of days we've woken up to 25 below zero actual temperatures and fifty below wind chills. Nice.

People I know are asking what anyone does to cope with this crap. I thought I'd give you my "coping strategies".

Me in Louisville at the Mint Julep sculpture. Thanks for taking the photo, Burne Sippy.

While my first instinct would be to drink cocktails almost as tall as I am, I know that isn't practical...Right? If it seems practical to you, let me know. I'm looking for any excuse I can find.

This weekend it got all the way up to ten degrees ABOVE ZERO. How warm. So, we were able to ski and play outside both Saturday and Sunday. I have found that it's really important for my sanity (what little there is left) to go outside and play as much as possible in the Winter. If not, I start getting cranky and feeling caged.

But once the wind chills are dangerous, I have to give that a rest and then I incorporate my two favorite cold weather coping mechanisms - comfort and escapism.

This past week I read classic science fiction that took place on a planet called Winter. It was surprisingly comforting to read about people traveling for weeks in the snow and temperatures even colder than ours. I guess I felt better about myself knowing others (fictional others, but others just the same) had it worse than I did.

I also was obsessed with watching "Outlander". Holy cow! Talk about cheesy deliciousness. I watched all four seasons in about a month's time. Sadly, I watched the last episode of this season on Sunday evening. I suppose I could start it all over again if I'm going through withdrawal, right?

This year for Christmas my daughters bought me some small, fancy soaps, a cup that came with a loose leaf tea strainer thingy and a sample pack of some fancy loose leaf teas. Both of them have been perfect for this weather. My skin is so dry that I'd love to take a bath in warm lotion, but since that would be too expensive and possibly a little gross, I've been taking bubble baths and using the moisturizing, lovely smelling, soaps.

I also bought another sampler pack of teas from Numi to try. Some I really like and a few I could do without, but nothing takes away the chill quite like a hot bubble bath with fancy soap while drinking fancy teas.

Finally, I am doing my trainer work-out and watching a show thing I started last year. Right now, the show I'm watching is "Game of Thrones". I started watching it a few years ago with John, but after the first couple of episodes, with the five million characters getting introduced and all the wacky hijinks going on, John finally said, "It just seems like people doing a bunch of medieval stuff and I don't know why." So, we stopped watching it together, but now I watch on my trainer bike and it definitely keeps me motivated to ride more.

Of course, this being Iowa, it's supposed to get to almost fifty degrees this weekend. So, that means without the windchill we'll experience a sixty degree temperature change in just a few days, and with the windchill, it will be closer to 100 degrees. How does anyone acclimate? You know what? Scrap what I said about the impracticality of drinking a cocktail as tall as your person. It's starting to make perfect sense to me now.