Gobsmacked by the cold!

For those of you who do not know the meaning of "Gobsmacked" it’s something that leaves you speechless, or otherwise stops you dead in your tracks. While I wasn't exactly speechless, I was certainly dead in my tracks yesterday when the midday temperature barely made it to 24F degrees.

I am like a lizard when it comes to cold weather, my body just shuts down and concentrates on trying to survive. I had a lot of work I had planned to do yesterday on my medical society project, but my hands were so cold I couldn't control the mouse on my computer, let alone type with any accuracy, so wrapped in many layers of sweaters, long johns, shawls, plush throws and two live hot water bottles named Bella and Fred, I sat in my comfy chair and read all day long. Thanks be for my Kindle, because I read 2 1/2 books on it with only one finger exposed to press the page forward button!

I have aways been a hot house plant. My first tour in the Foreign Service was in Korea. I arrived there in February on a bright sunny day and was hit with 18 degree weather at noon. I had experienced some cold weather in the four previous years in Washington DC but I was not prepared either emotionally or wardrobely (sic) for long days of very cold weather.

I tried to avoid cold places after that with pretty good success although I did spend a winter in London that was called the coldest winter since 1947 when we had frozen snow and ice on the streets over over two weeks. But other than that I spent most of my career in places with wonderfully mild to warm weather, i.e., Nigeria, Taiwan, Damascus, Colombia, Costa Rica and El Salvador.

The good news about yesterday's weather is that sometime during the night the winds switched to the south and it started getting warmer. It was 34 degrees when I got up this morning and we are forecast to have a high today in the high 50s, something I can live with.

So out of hibernation and back to work today.

A new look for the New Year

I liked what JB did to her blog so I got inspired to do something new with mine. The picture of clouds is one I took this summer in England. We saw oil sketches by Constable at the Victoria and Albert museum while in London and then one day when I was out walking in the country around our hotel I took this picture which looks very much like one of the cloud formations in the paintings.

When I got back I got a copy of one of the oil sketches and have it hanging where I see it every day.

I have a new key board, really a new computer also (a Christmas present) and I am having a very hard time getting used to it. Those of us who learned to type on a manual typewriter have trouble with computer keyboards anyway. The one that came with the computer was impossible so I bought a wireless keyboard and mouse, giving up my beloved trackball mouse in the process.

Fred had a little adventure yesterday--a tiny one. I was bringing things in the house and thought the front door was pulled shut--it wasn't. When I got back with the next load, he was sitting on the front porch. Bella was sitting just inside the door watching him. I didn't make a big deal, I just pushed the door wide open and started in and he came in behind me. Then I got scared, because he doesn't wear a collar and if he gets out he could end up in the pound!

Happy New Year!

Well 2008 is over and we have started on 2009. Christmas was subdued, my mother's older sister died Dec 19 and we had the funeral on the 22nd. Since Mother died just a year earlier, it brought back some of that sadness also. We have informed their surviving sibling, my aunt Mackie, that under no circumstances may she die in December.

I closed the books for the Bookstore in the black, not much but enough to guarantee we continue for at least another year. We are a non-profit but you do have to have operating funds.

Fred is settling in well

and Bella has found a new place to nap:

Since I am going to need that mail tray in a couple of days I hope she gets tired of it!