Cold.

I remember a friend here in Mountain Village telling me about her blog. She said that she was posting all the time until about January. From January through March, she hardly posted at all. What could she say besides "It's still cold, there's still snow, and there's still nothing new." That's how I feel right now.

Yesterday a local called to warn us of extreme cold predicted for last night. He said that he looked at the horizon and could tell that it was going to be -70. Of course Joe was skeptical, and tried to get more information on how you predict temperature by looking at the horizon. He couldn't get much out of him, except that it was the "native way." When I got up this morning, there was frost on the inside of our windows and on the inside of our arctic entry door. So I got on AccuWeather and currently our temperature is -24, -35 with windchill. There's never much difference between lows and highs here, so last night's low was -24. That's pretty freakin' cold. I just sent Joe to the store to get some pepperoni so we could make a pizza later, and 8 minutes after he left he was banging on the door. He was too cold and needed to put on snow pants. Jeans just don't cut it at -24.

We didn't do much this weekend. Yesterday we cleaned the house and worked on report cards. Today we have to work on lesson plans, and then I think we're going to celebrate my birthday. We're going to make a pizza and cupcakes and open presents. Mondays we have staff meetings, so by the time we get home, we'll be too tired to do much. I wish we had school off for MLK day, but no such luck. I'm down to 12 kids now. 2 of my girls have moved away. The boys are running the show now. I have 7 boys and 5 girls. My kids are so much fun now. They finally understand my sense of humor, and are adopting my sarcastic attitude. I think they trust me now to really let loose. One of my boys, who is usually very serious and quiet, stood up last week during silent reading and started singing "We represent the lollipop guild." It was hysterical. I wish you could meet them. They are so cute.

This week we have parent-teacher conferences and formal evaluations. Thursday and Friday we get out at 12:30, and then have conferences until 3:30. That'll be nice. My kids wanted to celebrate my birthday on Monday, so I have that to look forward to. Actually, I don't think they give a darn about my birthday as much as they want cupcakes. I'm on to them...

Have a good week!