It's butt cold outside, and I'm fresh outta beer

Good God almighty it's cold.
How cold is it? We left coffee in mugs in the car yesterday (in the garage).. total icicles this morning. You know, I've been telling people I really love the winter we're having. And I'll continue to stick by that, since I love the snow and everything that goes with it. I mean, if you're going to have winter, let's have some freakin' winter. Bring on the snow. If you can't figure out how to drive in it, there's lot of affordable housing in Florida and Arizona.
I'll admit, I don't get freaked out by winter driving, ever. But last week's trek home from Aurora in the whiteout was no fun. 2.5 hrs of not knowing when you might lose sight of the road again.
But all in all, I like taking the snow in stride. Most of the time, it just means slowing life down a bit and making sure you don't end up in the ditch.
Our first winter on Bond Drive has been spectacularly beautiful all season, with snow blanketing the neighborhood from start to present. Even that huge thaw and rain storm we had in January was followed quickly by more snow. There's nothing worse than the once-every-two-months snowstorm that keep you on your heels and unprepared in terms of boots, shovels, gas for the snowplow, etc. Just keep it coming.
One downside is that I'm now starting to entertain the idea of installing some sort of heating elements in my gutters that would eliminate those ice dams. The gutters are already pieces of shit on our house, this winter is undoubtedly making them, well, bigger pieces of shit.
But now that both of our cars are outfitted with new(er) tires, I say let's take ol' Phil the groundhog out and show him whatever he wants, who cares if he predicts 6 more weeks of winter.
What we really need is some sort of rodent who could do away with the 40-degree rainy days that accompany spring so often. To me, the in between weather in March and April is worse. You get a few weeks of 50's, maybe even a freakish 60, then all of a sudden who get another ass-freezer in the 30's with rain and wind. No thanks.
And if I had more time to go skiing, I would be even more in love with this stuff. Luckily I'm getting a good dose of my favorite outdoor activity this weekend when I'm going skiing at Granite Peak in Wisconsin with the church senior high group. Ann has to be laughing because I never pack on time for ANY vacation, yet it's 4 days before the ski trip and lots of my gear is already by the back door.
An interesting thing happened yesterday while grabbing my ski boots out of the basement. I was getting everything out and showing Clare and Addie how downhill skis work when I noticed and unfamiliar look to the footbed in one of my boots. "You've got to be kidding me" I told the girls as I poured out several hundred pellets of D-CON mouse poison which had apparently been stored away by some furry friend. Little bastards... Thankfully there were no rotting mouse corpses in there. I'm sure they died a very uncomfortable, dehydrating, uncontrollable bleeding-from-the-inside kind of death somewhere else. And I'm guessing they must have been in there a long time ago, since we haven't had any mouse intruders for months since mouse-proofing the house in late fall.
So I'll take the cold for a while longer if it means that our snow sticks around. It's certainly been a memorable first winter at our new house, and I'm thankful every snowfall that the John Deere came with a snowplow attachment.