Have a nice day

Sitting here in the relative warmth and comfort of our house, we catch a news report now and then on the winter weather in the US. I say "relative" warmth: the thermometer over my desk said the room temperature was 15º this morning...that's Celsius, by the way, or 59ºF...no central heating in the house, so we turn on electric space heaters now and then. Not exactly cozy.

But then, it can't be cozy there in the US, either, if the temperatures are below freezing and the electricity's off. Joy said in her blog that they got the ice, but had not lost power; we learned last night that Abbie's brother is going to move to a hotel in Branson, taking their parents with them "until the power comes back on---two weeks, perhaps".  Abbie had seen on CNN International that Jasper, Arkansas, had the thickest coating of ice from this storm. That's only about 15 miles or less from where Abbie's folks live, so it's not surprising they're in the dark.

Our low temperatures are down to around 50ºF, which is as cold as it gets down on the coast line where we live. But it has snowed (and is probably still snowing) up in the mountains, and a lot of people will try to get up there to see the white mountaintops, which is a fairly rare event here. As you can see from this picture from the local newspaper, it doesn't take as much snow to get people exited here, as it does in a lot of places. In fact, this little amount of snow is already enough for me not to get excited.

So, for everyone out there, have a nice day. Or have an ice day.