Deep Freeze

Here in our new house, we have a digital temperature read-out on our fridge in the kitchen. Today while I was looking in the fridge to see what I could make for dinner, I realized something interesting. It's COLDER outside than it is in our FREEZER. No kidding...Last night we got down to only one degree, and last night at 9:30, with the wind chill factor included, it was negative 11! Now that's COLD...

In other news, James is still on night float for another week, but that means that tomorrow is his day off. He's home tonight (first time since last Saturday), and he's sitting on the couch playing the new Call of Duty XBox game. Right now he's fighting Nazis, and Max is doing his best to help by barking to scare away all of the German Shepherd dogs that keep trying to attack James. On one hand, it's funny b/c Max is dead serious. He seems to sense when the dogs are about to show up, even before they appear or bark. On the other hand, watching Max in his extremely rare "attack" mode makes it a bit more real...I mean can you imagine a Nazi coming after you with a gun and a pack of German Shepherds that are trained to rip your throat out? I'm glad that our little GSD is such a sweetheart b/c when he's in attack mode, he's scary.

I've started planning my spring garden, and I'm excited to get some seeds started in a few weeks. I haven't bought any yet, but I will soon. I'm planning lots of pretty flowers, as well as tomato plants, zuchinni, cucumbers, and green beans. I think I might also plant some raspberries and black berries, so that I can make jelly and have fresh fruit. Fruit is SO expensive here in the midwest. (Except apples, which are dirt cheap...) It's so much fun to plan your garden during the winter. I never allow myself to look at the seed catalogues until January b/c it helps me get through the winter cold weather doldrums. We're going to dig up the back corner of the yard for vegetables, and we have lots of room in the side yard for flowers. I also want to fill up a bunch of my pots with pretty trailing plants and hang some petunias off the sides of the back deck. Now if we can only keep Max from digging them all up...

James and I were talking today about how we really want to go back to Europe. Neither of us has been to Spain or Switzerland, and we want to go see both. Of course we don't have the money to go right now, but it's fun to think about it.