IT’S A THREE DOG NIGHT

Jeremiah was a bullfrog! It's cold outside! Joy to the World! It's cold inside! It's 11:30pm and 33 degrees f. in South Florida. I seriously don't know how you people up north do it. I was born, raised and lived 19 glorious years right smack in the middle of Indiana so I know about cold and snow and freezing temperatures. But I've forgotten!

One more degree and we are really freezing. We have plastic on our fruit trees and plants outside to protect them from frost. We've closed the windows! As I write this, both dogs are in bed with us just for warmth and dang it! We're short a dog. Because it is A.THREE.DOG.NIGHT!

We never turn on the heat because we're cheap and it smells funny. It's the principle. We live in Florida. We do build a fire in the fireplace. But that's in the living room. Right now I'm considering building a fire on the floor by my bed. Bad idea? I'm not sure.

I have no idea what I'll wear to work tomorrow. I've already used my two warm outfits this week. I'll have to wear sweatpants and a pullover hoodie. Appropriate attire for an office manager? Who cares! I don't own socks. Oh sure, I have those little footie socks. But not the kind that keep your legs warm. Today in the elevator, I saw a woman all bundled up in every item of winter clothing she owns and when I looked down to her feet, she was wearing flip flops. I almost laughed but I understood. Wool coat and flip flops. (Thongs, HBL) We clearly aren't equipped to handle this weather. We don't even own shoes with toes in them.

I'm going to sleep now. I'm going to dream of balmy, beach breezes and hopefully I will wake up in Texas where Midlife Slices tells me it's supposed to be 70-80 degrees tomorrow.

BRRRRRRR!

Frozen orange juice, anyone?

NOW THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKIN’ ABOUT

There's a little nip in the air. All across the country we hear tell that winter is approaching. I don't think the temperature got up to 70 degrees farenheit here today. Now before you go sending me hate mail and leaving comments about how I'm such a biatch for complaining about great weather, let's be clear: I'm not complaining. In fact I love it! I'm simply stating that it's getting cooler/colder all across the country and Canada too. I know this because My Harley Stud gives me a weather report for the location of pretty much every friend and relative we have every morning.

What is it about middle age men and their fascination with the weather? When D2 was getting ready to go off to college, D1 informed her that, "Every telephone conversation you have with Daddy will start with: So what's the weather like there?" It's not just MHS either. I call my Daddy almost every day on my way home from work. Almost without fail, every conversation will include the difference between the weather here and where he lives, 200 miles north of here. Both MHS and the Biker Nazi have downloaded special weather applications to their phones so they can easily check the weather conditions any where they please. And they please to check them everywhere everyday. My brother, Smitty, watches the weather channel on Maui and if he sees a storm anywhere in the state of Florida, he will call to make sure I'm OK. I have a cousin, BoBo, who drives cross country for a living and he also is a weather channel fan. I guess that should be expected in his line of work though. My point is that every man I know of middle age and up fancies themselves as some sort of meteorologist. I almost forgot to mention our friend, Wolfgang Johnny, who actually is the chief meterologist of our local news station. We blame him for every crappy day we have. And the poor guy gets no credit when the weather is good.

The funny thing about cooler weather when you live in Florida is that we have so few opportunities to wear our winter clothes. So if the temperature dips into the 60's you will see everyone's leather jackets and boots, wool sweaters and scarves. Yeah we bundle up like it's a daggone blizzard because we know this may be all the cool weather we get and we have to wear every piece of winter apparel that we own while we can. It's pretty funny because usually by noon, everyone is mellllllttttting. Layers, people, it's all about layers.

With the cooler weather upon us, MHS and I love a fire in the fire place. It's so cozy. It doesn't take too much of a drop of the mercury for us to turn off the a/c, open the windows and build a roaring fire in the fireplace.

A few days ago Daddy mentioned that Daisy made a Hoosier specialty for dinner: Beans and cornbread. Jan over at Jan's Sushi Bar mentioned black eyed peas and cornbread the other day too. Between the two of them, I started to long for, crave and dream of a big pot of ham and beans and buttery cornbread. I'm pretty sure my cornbread recipe is the best in the world. No lie! I thought about posting the recipes for these two delectable concoctions but I'm not sure that I am not just one of a few people that like this sort of comfort food. MHS loves the cornbread but is not a big fan of beans unless it's chili. So if you're interested, let me know and I will share. Be warned though, I measure nothing.

I'm still trying to shake this stupid cold and skipped the gym today so I thought that enjoying some comfort food and relaxing by a nice fire might be just the ticket to cure what ails me. That and the Airborne that Midlife Slices and D1 keep pushing on me. *wink* Love ya, ladies! And PS neither one of them bothered to tell me how terrible it tastes!

So if you need me, I'll be right here.