It is Sofa King cold in our house. It’s fine until the wind blows, and the temperature sinks to below 20. I went to plug in the Keurig yesterday and there was a blast of cold air as if the A/C was on–but it’s just that somewhere between the siding and the wood paneling of the kitchen is a whole lot of nothing.

We keep it pretty cool in the house to save on propane bills, especially when it’s just me in the house during the day. But this year I turned it up to 62 degrees from 60 during the day. Right now I’m wearing longjohns and thick alpaca wool socks, and two sweatshirts, and I’m cold. The thermostat says 62, but that’s only at the location of the thermostat–everywhere else is colder. It must be.

I don’t know, do you? if there has to be a passageway for air to move through to create a draft, or can a draft be created just from a cold wall or window. If you could see the air, I bet our walls would look like waterfalls of cold air in here.

On Saturday morning, Chelsea looked out our door and said, “I’m disappointed, they said it could be a foot of snow, this is just a couple inches.” Later I went out to plow the drively and promptly got my little tractor stuck in the foot of snow in the driveway. The wind plays tricks.

Since then I’ve been plowing twice daily, with some shovel work in between. There is now so much snow, the canyon walls of the driveway are higher than my plow. So I have to use the shovel to get the snow up and over, or the canyon will close in on us.

After the kids and Chelsea left for work/school, I took Wendell out for a walk. The snow had fallen another half inch since I plowed at 6:15, and between the time of day (dawn), the layer of clouds, and the thick falling snow, it was dark as night.

I think the schools should have been closed again today. When I was out plowing, our road still had not been plowed, which is a rough gauge of how the road crews are working.

But, I’m glad they’re not closed. Last week I was losing it. C’s been working late this month, catching up after her holiday vacation, which means from school to bedtime, it’s all me. I have some tricks up my sleeve, and typically I have a wellspring of patience–but turns out if you open all the taps at once, even the deepest wells can lose their pressure. So after last Wednesday’s snow day, then add a few extra sick-days for Juniper, and I was tapped and running dry.

Chelsea tried to give me yesterday to recoup and regather; she didn’t say as much, but she offered to pick the kids up from school and run my errands for me–which meant I wouldn’t have to leave the house. But when she got to the schools they were closed. So she gave me a half-day, in any case. And you better believe I soaked it up.

I’m trying to soak up today, too, even in this bath of cold air.