Right now, at this moment, 7:08am CST, the temperature outside is -20°F! That’s minus twenty, twenty degrees below zero, Oh! My! G__! It does not get that cold here. For those of you playing along in Canada and Europe that’s about -28°C.

When I woke up this morning my husband told me not to look at my weather station but of course I had to look. When I first looked at it I saw 20 degrees and thought, “Huh? That’s not that bad,” but I kept staring at it for a few seconds and finally realized that there was a minus in front of the twenty.

I had to go outside for a minute so I could experience this level of cold just once in my life. (Oh please let it be just once.) It actually doesn’t feel that much colder than -10° but maybe I needed to stay out a little longer to really feel it. I keep looking at the weather forecast for the next seven days and seeing that it predicts 65°F for the middle of next week and it seems like the ravings of some lunatic prophet. Can it ever really be that warm again?

UPDATE: From Steph: “Did you know that there are parts of Oklahoma that are colder than the South Pole today?” No, I did not know that. Very interesting. But you know, it is summer down there. If I tell myself that maybe that will make it better. 9:45 and it’s finally above zero now.

Actually, I’m not terribly bothered by the fact that it’s that cold. It’s just very interesting. It’s warm enough indoors and I have plenty of tea and hot chocolate and nowhere that I have to go. Life is still good.