Vernon is already up… and had his one cup of instant coffee and 4 pancakes and sausage.  He has made his own breakfast for 90% of our married life.  I’m the one who stays up late… gets up late… and he goes to bed early and gets up early.  He’s sweet that way.  About breakfast.  He’s just left for work and slammed the back door.  Not so sweet.

I keep thinking I’m going to have to get up and go feeding the cows with him… but he hasn’t asked me to yet, and lazy bum that I am… I haven’t volunteered.

But back to my warm waterbed…  I know I have to get up and get going, but my bleary eyes check out another clue about the temperature both inside and out.  This is what I see…

That’s a clue.  It is cold outside.  Relatively cold inside too.  Brrrrrrr.  Think I’ll stay under my buffalo robe!  But I can’t.  I hear Dally protesting that she has spent the night in the kennel and it is time to trade her freedom for Lucas’.

OK.

OK!

I grab my Carhartt coat, throw it over my pj’s, slip my bare feet into snow boots and make a mad dash for the kennel!

My hand sticks temporarily to the metal screen door handle.  Glad I don’t open the door with my tongue!

I rearrange dogs and run back to the house.  I glance down at the dogs’ *heated* water dish outside my back door.  It has 1/4 inch of ice on it and I break it with my boot heel.  Dally was thirsty… glad to help out.

Whooee!  BRRRRRRRRRRR!!

I grab my coffee cup and fill it with water and zap it in my microwave.  I dance around while waiting for the water to heat.  BRRRRRRRR!

Only then do I get brave enough to look at the thermometer.  The clues have helped me guess, but now I know.  It was -34 this morning.