It is COLD. The high today will be 10 and the low -11. Isn’t that special? Tomorrow the high is predicted to be 11. And it is slick because we had more horizontally-blowing snow that sticks here and there until all the spots are covered and then waxes every surface, including the turn from HWY 6 to Allen Chapel Road. That would be the one where I felt the car just move almost off the road as I slowly turned.

I don’t know why I feel so put out by this cold blast. It could be that this dry, sterile cold gets inside you and lingers even after you have come into the warmth.

Out with the snowblower at 6 am, out later in a negative wind chill factor . . . and then OUT. I wasn’t really tired*, but muscles were sore and I felt as if I’d been pummeled so I thought I’d just take a couple of Aleve and rest for awhile under my Moo blanket. Well, I did more than that; I let my eyes close and thought about actually heating up one of Mother’s/Grandmother’s/Great-grandmother’s soapstone bedwarmers. Sort of seriously thought about it, but didn’t. What I did was fall into the arms of Morpheus and had terrible dreams, which fortunately I do not remember.

Then I woke up. Now getting back to sleep may be a chore- or not.

W, X, Y . . . ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

I am one of those people who, when I go against my instincts for logic, don’t remember the times I made the correct decision. Maybe there were none? I stew over the times I go against my intuition and wind up wrong. It doesn’t matter if it is a little smack or a SMACK – not the slightest bit.

That might not be true; it might be the littlest ones that gnaw at me. After all, a big SMACK can be quite a punch; I imagine that is Wailing Wall time not gnawing.

Sometimes I think of all the times in movies when the character has to go with his gut or logic and by doing the former, saves the Universe. (Well, maybe with Mr. Spock, it’s different.) I find myself thinking, “Boy, if that had been me, I’d be smithereens. What brought this topic up? Oh, just a word game. See, I told you about the small things and the gnawing. I made the mistake of visualizing it like the little monsters on the athletes foot commercial. I’d advise you not to do the same.

Because I have been writing about weather, I’ll just continue. We got more snow – enough to use the new snowblower I think. And it is still COLD. Very cold. Why am I obsessed with it being cold this year? I don’t know and I don’t care; it is not a major psychological issue with symbolism and transference and whatever. And, if it is, I still don’t care. I am too busy fussing about it being cold and snowy.

In fact, I have to do that now: go fuss.

I know I must be here because I am darn certain I am not there Just a little AmeliaJake logic for the uninitiated.

A good post lies right here in the alphabet on my keyboard; my fingers rest above it. I wish this were a MacOuija Board and impulses would trigger my fingers to type the letters of beautiful sentenced full of truth and warmth and good humor. It would be nice, that.

My story lies in those letters, just waiting for someone to put them in just the right order. I look at the Qwerty board and I marvel at what 26 letters could show. I don’t know if I really know how it would read myself.

I was intending to complain about the coming negative numbers in temperature last evening, but I dozed off. I woke up before midnight and could have posted, but simply went to the bathroom, took my medicine and crawled back under my Sherpa Moo blanket.

Not unexpectedly I woke up around five this morning and it is a quarter of seven and still dark. I don’t think I would do well in Scandinavia in the winter. Dozing changed nothing – it is still going to be very cold and snow is expected. In LaGrange County, maybe even some added lake effect stuff. Don’t you just love a good whiteout on the Toll Road? And I am still in a complaining frame of mind. Apparently, standing in thigh-high snow several times last year left an impression. Please, no remarks about thigh-high on me being ankle dusting on others. Oh, go ahead; I know it’s almost impossible to hold back.

I did buy a snowblower; I thought I would be so excited and anticipating snow. That didn’t seem to have happened. I think I assumed if I got a snowblower, it would not snow. Not the most scientific theory, but maybe it is what got us through December.

It’s definitely time to bring in lots of wood; I am considering just putting a log pile in the basement by that fireplace. I figure if I bring in frozen logs, there won’t be any snakes in the woodpile. Right?

It was supposed to be warmer; but the march has begun to negative temperatures, although we are not expecting a great deal of snow. Of course we aren’t expecting it – Fate loves the surprise factor. I don’t know why I am so pissed off about it getting cold and icy; it could be I am looking for an excuse for the mood.

My eyes grew tired while reading just a few hours ago, so I closed them. Now, it is just past midnight and I am awake. Oh. Good. Uh . . . there’s that mood again.

I did wake up to find a nice email from my cousin; made me smile and feel warmth.

After I pushed Publish just a while ago, I looked at my email and saw an offer from Shutterfly – quite a handsome one – and I looked. I should not have done so because I came face-to-face with calendars and this year I did not make the one I had intended, the one that featured Shane. Why am I so distressed by that dog’s death? Obviously, it has linked itself to deep psychological issues in my brain/mind that are gut-wrenching. I could have said visceral, but I might as well be blunt.

It almost doubles me over; my breath is caught between in and out; my throat tightens painfully.

Of course, it is not wise to write such revealing things on the Internet, but then I am not young and looking for college admission or for a job and don’t have to worry about an potential employer seeking out any weaknesses. )Actually, I certainly have given anyone a good enough look by now, what with Poos and Bears and UDO’s.)

They say anything on the Internet is there forever; I hope so, because no matter what the world is made of, somewhere, somehow, I want Shane to know how much I loved him and how much I cherished whatever links to others he had.

Yes, it is January 2nd. I figured it would be, seeing as yesterday was the first. I looked at yesterday’s post, by the way, and see that I used a wrong verb tense, quite probably because I altered my sentence and didn’t proofread. One of my many faults. Well, so be it. I may actually go and open the edit section and change it or I may not. A dratted chore, dontcha know.

I suspect whatever higher powers may be did not like that attitude, because when I took a drink of cola, it tickled the back of my throat and it was all I could do to keep it from spraying across the keyboard as my reflex kicked in – or spat out, as it were.

And so, what now? Well, I don’t know; I’m sort of blah with not even a hint of the idea of a fresh start, a resolution, a determination to put my nose to the grindstone and just get on with it. I believe this could proof to be a problem, one that down the road could lead to my being in tears, gasping through sobs how sorry I am to have been so irresponsible, lazy, unmotivated, whatever.

That was an uplifting thought . . . but that sarcasm did not have a motivating effect. Goodness. I am at a loss. Have I tried entering one of my other latent potential personalities yet? Might be a bit risky, not to mention being assumed to be dementia by those around me. Who IS this nice person? Obviously, doctor, she’s gone round the bend. Then again, there might not be another personality, which is stretching my imagination as does physics. Is the cat dead yet? Sorry, inside joke with Der Bingle.

Well, tomorrow is the third and maybe three is the charm.

It’s January 1st, new month, new year and one of the omens aren’t good. Omen isn’t the right word because that implies a sign of something to come. We don’t need a sign; it’s here. It is cold and we are going to be having snow and slick conditions and more COLD. It feels like 2 degrees out there.

Now, if you want omens or call them indicators if you scoff at the former, look at the time just before midnight and just after last night – the time that horribly tacky looking ball came down on Times Square. I remember remarking it looked like something from The Price is Right. I started to open a can of Diet Cherry Coke – so wrong, it fizzes all over my pants, not because it had been shaken by a New Year’s reveler, but because it was almost frozen. When I relieved the pressure, it geysered out as COLD slush. I don’t know why I am capitalizing COLD all the time now; maybe I am just peeved.

That peevishness could be related to a Words With Friends game I started before midnight and was flattened by soon after. Oh, it was horrendous. And I have to live with it for the next 365 days – unless I die and then it won’t be that long. Someone may put it on a tombstone, though, which is a good reason for the scattering of anonymous ashes.

Now, granted, when I saw the handwriting on the wall – or the pixel tiles on the pixel board, I thought, “Oh heck, blocking is just going to delay the inevitable.” Maybe, but it turned out not blocking was like throwing myself off a cliff. It went downhill from there; I believe that pun was definitely intended.

I started out with a reference to an easy December – not too cold, easy travel. Well, that’s over. The weather prediction is not good for someone in rural Northern Indiana. Now that Shane is gone, I am tempted to put a jar of peanut butter in a basket, put on my red riding hood and camp out by the heat source at the LaGrange house – as long as the cellular connections continue working. Just my Sprint phone, my Verizon ipad and my Kindle with 3G – and my Moo blanket:

What is this? I post on Christmas and then don’t do so again until New Year’s Eve. I guess the daily circumstances of my life are changing. Oh, well, onward with a new path.

I did lose Guido for a few minutes today; black blends in so well, dontcha know. I think he is getting even with me, because as my advisor in Words with Friends, he let me made a big mistake. BIG.

I hope everyone has a good year and I hope I can stay up until midnight. Oh, shoot, I just ate a Christmas delicacy and did not chew 35 times. Well, that bummed me out for the end of the year, because it was the last one and it tasted so very good.