This whole bundling up for winter thing is going to kill me

I think that title is a bit dramatic, but seriously this cold weather kind of blows. It's only the beginning of December and already we've had 3 plow-worthy snowstorms, and right now the current temperature outside my house is 1.6. Not even 2 degrees! Now I may sound a bit wimpy especially since I am originally from North Dakota, which I contend is the coldest state in the whole U.S. (Alaska doesn't count- sorry, Alaska pissed me off this past election season, so they aren't getting any cold weather sympathy from me). I remember many winter days in ND that were indescribably cold, windy and snowy. We were in Grand Forks one Christmas when I was about 8 or 9, and I recall being completely awed that the snow on the street was piled up so high that the tops of the street signs were just barely poking out the top. The mound of snow in my Aunt and Uncle's yard was drifted all the way up the side of the neighbor's house (and surprisingly that was not the year of the big flood).



Check it out. That's me on left left and my little brother on the right

Back in Bismarck, we had a great sledding hill about a block away from our house. We would have hours of fun with the neighbor kids, but it was damn cold. Cold fingers, cold toes, and the funniest has to be my dad walking in the house after shoveling snow with icicles hanging from his moustache.

I can honestly say that today here in Wisconsin is a North Dakota day, cold windy and crunchy snow underfoot. Mae loves to play in the snow. Recently, when the bus drops her off, she hands me her backpack and runs for the big drift behind the house. She refuses to come in until she's lost most of the feeling in her fingers and toes. Binny on the other hand doesn't care for the wind snow in her face feeling. Can't say that I blame her, this morning I opened the door to let the dogs out and the cold air took my breath away. What's worse? All of the bundling, especially now that both of them ride the bus and the teachers ask that they come to school in full winter dress, which makes for interesting maneuvers in and out of the bus.

Their coats and snowpants have been filthy almost everyday, from what I can imagine is a combination of many children dressing in one area and muddy, snowy boots. It takes a whole 10 minutes to dress one of them here at home. I can't even imagine the chaos that must go on at school. I'm just amazed that we haven't lost more than 1 hat so far this winter. Oh, and did I mention that we're almost out of heating oil for our furnace (gotta call today). Last year we filled our tank twice, the second fill being very expensive ($3.13/ gal.). Hopefully we'll not need more than that this year even if oil prices have come down.

Bundle up!

***UPDATED*** Heating oil was $2.19/ gal. Fill 'er up!