Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Four degrees this morning. The last time it was this cold was December of 1972. I wasn’t yet born. Just south of us hit –10 degrees. East of the mountains in Bend, it was –20.

In other news, water—we’ve had none today. Frozen, burst pipes and a day of repairs for my husband. He met our neighbor at Home Depot early this morning. Also buying plumbing supplies. 16 hours of (my husband’s along with my father’s and father-in-law’s) labor later… I think we’ve got it.

I’ve been house-bound since Friday. The boys’ Christmas choir concert was rescheduled (and I hope will happen this next week). My husband had to drive to Portland (where there was no snow) for work on Friday. He was fine coming home until he hit Salem and chains were required on I-5. I don’t ever remember that happening before between Salem and Albany! It took him an hour and a half on back roads instead of the usual 20ish minutes.

Church was cancelled. All local schools are closed tomorrow. We are just not equipped to handle these icy conditions here in the mild Willamette Valley.

The boys have been sledding and just hanging out. I’ve felt completely and utterly nebulous. Nothing has been accomplished for days. No, that’s not accurate. I finished both Insurgent and Allegiant yesterday. So that’s something. Ha! After today, it looks as if a bomb went off in my kitchen. I guess it’s provident that we have no CC classes tomorrow. It will be house cleaning day instead.

While we were off kilter today, the whole family fed on junk food and cried our way through August Rush for the 37th time. (Russ wasn’t about to miss the ending, so he sat and watched the last 10 minutes while waiting for pipes to thaw.)

And that’s life at Mt. Hope.