baby, it's cold outside

Posted by admin | January 8, 2020

The morning routine has been the same for quite a while. I get the kids up and they groggily go downstairs going for the door. I have to carry Milo as he doesn’t want to go and will run away if I don’t carry him. Zailey gets to the back door first and she runs out as soon as I open the door. Jynx gets to the door second and waits for Milo to be put down before he runs out. So, Jynx goes out last. Normally, anyway.

A few weeks ago, we got a nasty cold front that came through. The first day, the temps dropped below freezing and the winds were howling. The second day, we got six inches of snow that stayed around for almost a week. That first morning, though, Jynx came to the door like he normally did. I opened the door and let the two dogs out. Jynx stepped up to follow and then stopped when that cold hit him. He quickly turned tail and ran for cover. Damn, pussy, anyway.

I seem to like the cold more than the heat. I’m just as likely to be outdoors in the extreme cold as the extreme heat (pleasant days tend to be the exception and I head out more often on those). For one thing, hunting can be done in the cold. I’ve been known to go out on days below 0 Fahrenheit without the wind-chill being considered (-20 with the wind-chill almost a year ago). This means that writing isn’t getting done.

November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) every year. The goal is to write 50K words in the month. I keep being asked if I participate in it. I don’t because of all of the other things going on in my life. Pheasant Season opens (as do other seasons, but I mainly chase pheasants). Then late in the month is Thanksgiving and we (my wife, the dogs, the cat, and myself) host my mother-in-law and her husband. This tends to cut into writing time. Then there is the big factor of me wanting to go back and edit things right after I write them. With work, writing group, coin club, and my hunting activities (including Geary County Fish & Game meetings), I can’t seem to get my normal amount of writing done that month. (Now, I’m trying to figure out my normal amount of writing and am coming up with a figure of 6K a month on average, but I think I hit 12K in December, so I’m not sure if that is quite right. Though, I was working on a long short story for an anthology and the deadline was coming up, so it was an atypical month.)

Unlike Jynx, I say bring on the cold. I may not be working on my writing, but when I do, he can curl up with me and we can keep each other warm!