Finally the cold spell has broke

Who would ever have thought that 0 degrees above zero would feel balmy? That's what it felt like this past weekend after the bitter cold days of 20 below zero. So many people had a hard time getting their cars started, keeping their water and drain pipes from freezing, besides just trying to stay warm.

A friend of mine stopped by to visit one evening and he was really cold when he came in the house. His car doesn't have a good heater and he was driving around wrapped up in a sleeping bag. He wasn't wearing his warm boots so his toes were numb. Brr!

I remember driving in our 1972 Volkswagen van and it didn't have much of a heater in it. We didn't go out often after the sun went down in the winter. Whenever we did drive anywhere in the Volkswagen, I had to wrap the kids up in blankets to keep them warm.

My neighbor John always drove Volkswagen bugs. He would be so bundled up in layers that he looked like a bear and you could hardly see his face. I rode with him a couple times in his little bugs when it was bitter cold outdoors. The defrost system didn't work well in the Volkswagen, so the windshield would frost over while he drove.

To keep the windshield free of frost, he drove with one arm out the window holding onto a scraper while scraping the frost off the windshield and steering the car with his other hand. I held my breath the couple times I rode with him and was scared how treacherous it was beside freezing.

My son-in-law David has never felt cold like we had last week before. He grew up in Connecticut and the Washington, D. C. area. He had been living in Los Angeles the past couple of years. This is his first year in Minnesota. My daughter Mary had told him about it getting so cold here that it hurt, but he didn't understand it until last week.

He recently had his birthday and I gave him long underwear and he laughed at the gift. He had said that he didn't want to wear long underwear because then he felt like he had given into the cold. After last week, he saw why we all wear long underwear. He said it was so cold out that his teeth hurt. My son Timmy started to wear two pairs of long underwear when it was so cold and he said that he felt a lot warmer. I thought that sounded like a good idea, so I wore two pairs of my silk long underwear under my wool pants, I felt a lot warmer too. The extra layer made it more bearable to get in and out of the car. I could walk more comfortably across parking lots without the bitter cold wind whipping right through me.

One thing about the cold weather is that we all want to eat more. When I went grocery shopping when it was 20 degrees below zero, Timmy and I had to stop and sit at the deli to eat before we did the grocery shopping because we were so hungry. Usually we can wait until we buy the food and then go home and cook, but we couldn't wait on that cold day. My daughter Mary says she finds that she is hungrier since she moved back to Minnesota from Los Angeles. She keeps a stash of candy and cookies in her desk to nibble on throughout the day.

Even with all the snow we are getting and it is harder to get around, I like it better than when it was so bitter cold. As Tom said, "At least we made it through January, and February is a shorter month. Winter will be over soon."