-11 degrees

It's 11:26 am and it is currently -11 degrees outside. Our high today is -4. 'Nuff said.

So this is what I've learned in my few years of living in frozen tundra, for those of you sunny-state dwellers.

- they cancelled school today for some districts (not ours) because kids waiting for the bus can get frostbite in 10 minutes on their exposed skin

- they also close ice skating rinks when the temp drops below -15, because well, ice skating outside at -5 is a totally different story than ice skating when it's -15.

- I have white marks all around the edges of the legs of my jeans. They are salt lines, from stepping in piles and puddles and mushy and hard snow. You come home and your pants dry out and you have white lines showing where the salt clung on and stayed.

- at a certain point, electronics stop working in the cold. The gas pumps give you no information about what buttons to push because it's too cold for the read-out to say "do you want a car wash?" So that's really fun, standing out in the cold to get gas and trying to push the no button 10 times just so you can get your gas and get on with it. Or take the lesson I learned last year: NEVER leave your cell phone out in the car overnight. Takes 3 days for it to recover.

- moms must by all winter clothing for their children at the beginning of the season. Because in January, the stores clear the shelves to make room for Valentine's Day and 4th of July, and when little Asher loses his mittens (all 6 of them), there is no mitten to be found in Minnesota. Never mind that winter lasts until May.

- winter cold gives you brain freeze. It's been cold for 3 days and I've only left the house when necessary. So today, the coldest day of the week, I am going to go to the library. It's unncecessary and it's going to hurt, but my frozen brain is telling me it won't be that bad.

Minnesota soldiers on.