It’s cold.

It’s cold outside. It’s cold inside. When I started my car yesterday, I discovered the glass was completely frosted over on the inside.

I distinctly remember my husband enticing me with this move because, as he put it “The average temperature in winter is 40”.

I guess I missed out on the “average” bit of that statement; it should follow that we will have some pretty damn warm days here in late winter, if that average is going to hold out.

For my American friends, where I am living experienced its earliest snow in 17 years. Last year we saw the most snow they’ve seen in 30 years. How bad has it been? My road was gritted last week. For the first time in at least 10 years, so I’m told.

I am not amused.

Plus, I have a two-car attached garage at home. I didn’t have to scrape windows in below zero (okay, Celsius) temperatures. Heck, I didn’t have to go outside before I left the house.

(Ok, maybe I did – to blow away the 12-14 inches of snow we got on the ground, but that was a totally different thing. I was DRESSED for that.)

I think the worst part of this cold weather is that all I really want to do when I get home from dropping off the kidlings is to turn the heating on, curl up on the sofa with my afghan, a book and a hot cup of tea. The puppy seems to agree that this is a good idea.

This actually IS a good idea.

IF my husband didn’t need dress shirts ironed, or if my kids didn’t actually like clean clothes for school. Oh, and cooked dinners. And clean floors.

Needy people.

Honestly, though, I do not know what we would do without our amazing heater! Especially if the rest of the winter is going to be this cold. I just keep thinking about how lucky we are that we recently got our heating system serviced by a team of furnace cleaning experts.

You see, staying on top of furnace cleaning throughout the heating season is a must if you want to heat your home dependably! Any dust and debris that end up covering the parts inside your blower compartment can compromise the entire system and this can lead to safety problems.

Needless to say, I am delighted to confirm that our heating is in excellent shape and our house has never been cozier.

Now, if I could just teach the puppy to make me a cup of tea and bring it to me, so I didn’t have to lose my warm space on the sofa, I’d have it made – and I just might survive this winter.