The pleasures of cold weather....

Let me tell you about "our" day yesterday. It all started when Will went out to start his truck at 4:45 am. It was -40 wind chill factor. That instantly rips all of the air out of your lungs, freezes both fingers and toes and makes every joint in your body hurt. You force yourself to keep walking and do what you need to do. You'd like to run back into the house when you are done, but you have all you can do to stiffly walk back in (your clothes even feel frozen stiff). His truck didn't want to start, but it did, but.....when he went back out at 5:00 there was anti-freeze all over the ground and the truck was not doing too well. He went to start the Festiva to take it and it was snowed in. He finally came back in. I had no idea that any of this had happened. He was frozen from top to bottom. I got dressed and ran out and started my car. Thank you God that it started. We hurried into it and headed off to Mom and Dad's house to use their Tracker. After waking my sister Dana for keys we tried the Tracker. It was stuck! Ok, no problem, it's 4 wheel drive. But as Murphy's law seemed to be rearing it's ugly head and the wheel would not lock into 4 wheel drive. We gave up and I drove him to work.
I came home and got the kids sorted out. Thankfully the schools decided to close due to the cold weather. I left them and the dog and headed back into work. Sorted mail and then went out on my mail route to deliver in this terrible weather. I wore every item of clothing I could find. My snow mobile pants kept unclipping themselves on Saturday and then I'd be standing there with my pants around my ankles. Yesterday I was not having that again.....so I duct taped them on! Worked slick. Of course getting back out was fun.
It took me an extra 2 hours to do the route yesterday, but I finished. Then I stayed at the office doing paperwork. When I got done with all of that, I went back to Mom and Dad's house and worked on getting the car "unstuck". This was not easy especially since it was on empty and I was worried it would run out of gas. I got it taken care of and parked it.
Came home and checked on kids, started the fireplace again and then went out to check out Will's truck. If it had been just a hose that needed to be replaced, I could have gone and got one, but it's one of those things that will need a little more checking. The good news it seems to be either a hose connection or the radiator. I would much rather it was that than a blown engine.
I went and picked Will up from work and then told him that since he was with the "Mamma", he would have to run errands with me. He was very good about it, of course his only other option would have been to walk home. We finally got home and collapsed. After all that cold fresh air yesterday, it was all either one of us could do to sit and watch tv so we gave up and went to bed. I guess we've turned into "old married people" in more than one way.
It makes you appreciate warm weather when you have days like yesterday. For some reason today my mind keeps wandering to what I want to plant in my garden this year. It must be the start of cabin fever.
Next week we start reading electrical meters. We are covering my Mom and Dad's route while they are on vacation. After yesterday I'm really thinking they might have the right idea. I could give up this type of weather tomorrow and not miss it. Of course it didn't help when Will looked up Anchorage Alaska and they are having much warmer weather than us. Boy that's great (for them).
Well time to get the kids off to school. Hope you all have a blessed day.