Burrr, It's Cold Outside

This is absolutely a gorgeous day.  The sun is shining and the sky is that beautiful blue, but the air temperature is a very chilly 31 degrees.  As bad as that sounds, it is a vast improvement from the 26 we woke up to.  Not what we expect in Lower Alabama.  I’m not complaining, though.  It is far better than the 9 or 13 or whatever it was in Nashville this morning.  Gene trotted off early this morning to refill propane.  We certainly don’t want to risk running out.  It is supposed to stay cold for the rest of this week and, believe it or not, there are snow flurries in our forecast for Thursday.   As I’m writing this Gene is  out attaching our insulated water hose.  Who would have thought we would have needed it here?

In an effort to get the adventure told of our trip to Pensacola, I have neglected a couple things that I definitely want to share.  First is our new cat carrier.

Folds flat for storage

When we travel, the Peanut gets to ride in the backseat in his carrier.  That’s keeps him safe and it keeps us safe, as well.  There is no danger of him crawling around under the driver’s feet.  We have been happy with the standard, hard plastic, carrier, but when we are not traveling, it is just something else to store.  We found at Target a pop open polyester and mesh collapsible carrier.  The best part about this carrier--it stores flat.  You can also twist it up like those mesh window sun screens and it will store back in its small box.  It doesn’t come with brownie mix; I just used that box to give you an idea of the size box it comes in.  Peanut seemed perfectly content riding in it the two travel days we had coming here.

I saved the best for last--meeting new friends.  Well, I guess they really aren’t new friends.  We’ve read each other’s blogs and have corresponded via e-mail for a couple months now.  Yesterday, we finally got to meet, in person, Mike and Gerri.  I have said before, and so many others have said, when we meet folks whom we follow through blogs, it is like we are meeting old friends.  It was so comfortable welcoming them into our home--like they had been part of our lives for years.  We talked and talked and time flew by, but we didn’t get through talking, so we’ll have to catch up with them later in the week to continue our conversation.

We plan to sit by the fire today.  It’ll probably take the rest of the day for Gene’s hands to thaw.