Beginnings: Winter where I began!

The weather took a sudden turn here in Dixieland.  Our unusually warm Christmas break, with highs at least a couple of days in the 80's, had our kids frolicking in shorts, with bare arms and legs being bitten by gnats.  Our balmy weather has given way with January's arrival to something which (almost) resembles winters of my childhood.  Almost.  If only there was some snow!

I was born in one of the oldest towns in Big Sky Country.  (that's Montana for all you southerners)
I spent most of my childhood in Washington.  (that's state all you east coasters, not DC.)

It's cold where I come from.  It's "nose hair freezing" cold.  I can remember taking big deep breaths through my nose and feeling the hairs get all stiff in there.  It sounds weird but anyone who lives where it's cold knows what I mean.  As a kid we used to build snow forts and have snowball fights with any of the kids that showed up from all over town.  We'd melt snow to make sheets of ice for slides and speed down our mountain of snow onto the frozen ditch below over and over again. . .until the ice broke and I fell in.  The water was only up to my waist but getting out of waist deep water while wearing snow pants and moon boots isn't easy!  When I was in high school, we all plugged in oil pan heaters on our cars to keep them from freezing.  The year Matt and I got married, we had snow halfway up to the middle of our windows on the bottom and icicles hanging down to meet the snow from the top.  FEET of snow!  Not just inches. That is what winter is supposed to be like. 

Here in the balmy coastal south, cold is rare.  Snow is rarer still.  Lilli swears she saw flurries last year.  I think she has a great imagination.  But for tonight, I will be grateful for our colder weather and memories of winters past.

The low tonight is supposed to be in the 20's and we've been warned by our local news anchors that we'll be having a "hard freeze!"  We've covered our gardenia bush with plastic, brought in the potted plumeria that my husband brought me from Hawaii a few years ago.  (my husband calls this a nirn root. . . gaming reference, I guess) It might look like this if it ever bloomed. With temperatures like we had last week, we might see flowers yet!