Brrrrr!

Like many people in southeast Kansas. I own a weather radio. For those of you who get to watch TV and have fancy local radio stations, you may not see the value in these contraptions. They're kind of annoying, especially when the mechanical radio man voice interrupts your sleep with a very urgent test of the emergency broadcast system. And if there should actually be a weather event worth mentioning? Trust me, there's no way even the people at the cemetary a mile away could sleep through the beeping that radio emits. My husband hates it. I hate it, too, but during the summer tornado season, it's my best friend. We don't get the weather channel out here, and the closest severe weather siren is 4 miles away. In other words, we wouldn't hear it. So you can see why a storm-phobe like myself would require such a radio. It's the only thing that allows me to sleep during thunderstorms, because I know there's no way a tornado could sneak up on me with that weather radio blaring in my ear.

Right now I despise the weather radio. See, I've been trying to deny that winter is coming for a while now. Mother Nature has, up until now, played along with my charade, providing unseasonably warm weather and lots of sunshine. Gray November? Not this year. But winter *is* coming. In fact, winter has charged in like a bull in a china shop today. The first sign was the wind. Not just a little wind, but the howling, gusting, leaf-swirling kind of wind that even sounds cold as you listen from inside your warm house. (The shack of impossibly small proportions does have an up-side - it's easy to heat!) Next was the rain. Cold, half-freezing, sloppy rain, driving in wind-propelled sheets. And now, the weather radio is sounding its shrill warning. Pretend no more, summer-lovers.

I'm trying not to listen to it. I'm trying to pretend I didn't just hear 6 inches and snow in the same sentence. Please, someone make it stop!

If there's going to be 6 inches of snow, let's at least hope it's a nice snow. Not sloppy, wet, half-snow. The only good thing about a big snow is cross-country skiing. I'll try to look at the bright side. I do look really cute in my ski gear. ;)