That was the temperature last night. Here’s what the indoor/outdoor thermometer said this morning as I was getting ready to leave for work:
The temperature dropped so precipitously that our smart thermostat couldn’t keep up, and never got over 60 before we were ready to leave the house, then started cooling down. We keep the house at 57 at night and when we are gone all day. It does save money and energy. That is the reading from the coldest place in the house, don’t worry, we can’t see our breath.
It was one of those cold snaps that brings mechanical woes. I had to leave work early and go the opposite direction from the Yarnery, where I had a class, and go jump start my husband’s car. He had not put the jumper cables in his trunk yet. I, of course, leave mine in there all year, along with other kinds of crap I might need, or want to take to Goodwill, or forgot to put away. It can come in useful. Then after teaching , I discovered that the noise I was hearing from my car was not a tire booger, but a flat tire. When it’s 12 below, it can be hard to tell. I didn’t want to stop, so I drove the gas station and put some air in. The reward for rescuing the man was that at the crack of freezing dawn in the morning, he dragged out the air compressor and put air in my tires, so I could drive to the tire shop close to our house. They told me I had ruined the tire, and they had no replacement because their delivery was cancelled due to the weather. (Please don’t give me those tires if your delivery trucks can’t make it.) So I bussed it home. I wasn’t walking over the bridge, which I think must be the coldest place in Saint Paul. (See the lovely pix at Fifth Lamp Down for a year long set of views from the other bridge over the Mississippi.)
I have read that it is a fashion faux pas to wear more than one hand-knit item at a time. Maybe in California. In Minnesota, here’s a morning list of handknit item items on my person: hat, check, felted mittens, check, scarf, check, sweater, check, socks, check. Go ahead, send my picture into What Not to Wear, I am warm. I did commit a fashion dork maneuver, though, and realized I was wearing a hat made from the leftover Kureyon I used to make the sweater I was also wearing. Seems like the knitter’s solo sartorial equivalent of matching bar jackets.
In spite of a slow weekend for knitting, due to the vicodin I was taking after my dental surgery, here’s some of the Christmas knitting ready to pack and mail.
I still have more Christmas knitting to do, but only local knitting, so I have till Christmas morning to get it done. Pleeennty of time….
MLE
Yarnerinas 
Ugh. I should go check those dang tires today, too, just in case… You’ve had quite an adventure, haven’t you?! I think yesterday when I went to work (working from home today, so I’m wearing pjs) I had on the following knitted items: wool socks, scarf, mitten liners, and calorimetry. I was cursing myself all day for not putting on my thick, usually too warm to wear wool sweater.
That’s quite a pile of knitting to be sent out.
By the way – that pretty much describes my handknit attire for the day as well, replacing felted mittens with knitted gloves. While not knitted, my boots have a leak.
Oh, wow. That’s a lot of cold, and a lot of car trouble. I hope you’re staying warm! And I must admit, California fashion faux pas or no, I wear more than one of my knitted items on chilly days myself (today it’s socks and a sweater). This is bad? 😉
Bah, in LA they wear hand-knit scarves and Uggs with a tank top and miniskirt on days when it’s “only” in the high 70s, so who cares what they think! They have no sense of what real winter is all about.
Also, wool socks do not figure into the total “hand-knit clothing items” count. Wish I had mine on today!
I feel your pain! Just the handknit run down and the phrase “across the bridge” put me back shivering on the U of M campus in minus double digits. Once your’re near zero F there is no such thing as to much handknit wool! (I was always a double mitten , 2 hats person.)
When people not from Minnesota ask us why Minnesotans are so obsessed with the weather, my husband replies, “Because it can kill you.” Now that we live in SE Wisconsin, our daughter eschews fashion when the temp drops and her coworkers laugh at her. She asks, “Are your feet cold? Mine aren’t.” Then she heaps coals on their heads by scraping off their cars before she leaves because she’s dressed warm enough to do so.
Queen Ducky is right. Around here, more than one person has lost body parts or even died from exposure after car trouble or an accident.
It’s a hoot to watch the high school students standing around outside shivering, no hats or mitts (and certainly no longjohns under those tight, low-rise pants) and a light jacket. And that’s supposed to look…cool!
Hope you’re feeling better and warmer. We’re at 16 below F this morning, but we’re making a gingerbread house so all is well 🙂
Hope you are feeling better soon and don’t get too tired out to enjoy the holidays! Here in Rochester New York (near Buffalo), we were hit with a whacking of snow today. My husband and I were laughing at the seriousness of the news reporters shown standing in front of the freeway talking about the 6 inches of snow that had just fallen. We realized that as long term commuters in seriously freezing and snowy cities (Montreal and Ottawa), snow didn’t seem such a big deal to us. It’s when you drive a car that things get dicey. The risk of being stranded in the middle of nowhere in the cold is not so funny.
Hat matching a sweater? For me that would count as high fashion – an actual outfit – wow, two things that didn’t clash. Clothing is for being warm.