Winter in the Midwest

A friend of mine (whom seems to be serving as a good source of inspiration for me lately) wrote earlier today about a snow day in Beaverton, Oregon. I couldn't help but to giggle as I commented on his post. It seems as though Beaverton was getting a couple of inches of snow. Here is an excerpt from my comment:

"See, here in the Midwest, we measure snow by the FOOT. Snow days are for wusses, and are only called if it has snowed more than 2 FEET in less than four hours... I swear! As for temperatures, we had a sweltering 51 degrees with thunderstorms last night - followed by a devastating 6 degrees this morning (-20 with the windchill)... So my entire car was under a quarter inch thick layer of ice this morning... fun stuff, indeed!"

The sad thing is that this is just a very slight exagerration. It really was 51 degrees here last night... and it really was in the single digits this morning... and it really was in the negatives if you took into account the wind chill. I really did have to chip away the layer of ice that froze my car door shut. Then I had the pleasure of scraping the INSIDE of my windshield so I could see to drive.

My cousin from Florida will be spending the Christmas with us in Indiana this year. Her teenage kids have never seen snow before and they're looking forward to all of the joy that snow brings... you know, stuff like building snowmen, sledding, snowball fights, snow angels... LOL. Of course, this is if we have snow at all! The weather in the Midwest only comes in extreme form. Right now, we have no snow on the ground due to all of the rain and the warm temperatures this past weekend. Chances are that we won't have snow for Christmas unless we get four feet of it in a storm that buries us all for days. I could wish for snow for her, but then she gets to leave a couple of days after Christmas. Instead, I think I'm going to wish and dream about warm weather on a beach in Mexico.