35 Days Below Freezing

It was 40 warm degrees out this afternoon. The first time it's been above freezing since December 27, thirty-five days ago. Nice.

Back a few weeks ago, someone noted that here in Duluth we were below zero degrees for something like 94 hours. Zero is an important temperature mark. Another one for me personally is 10 degrees above zero. Warmer than that I wear my LL Bean warm-up jacket. Colder than that I wear my Eddie Bauer down parka. So warmer or colder than 10 degrees means quite a difference in bulk. That's what I do--look at the temperature and grab one coat or the other based on the the temperature. It makes it easy. No fashion statements for me in that category.

But certainly another important mark is 32 degrees, when water becomes a liquid. And it was nice to be that warm outside today. My neighbor was on her porch basking in the sun and reading a book!

Mini Vacation

Some friends had given us a gift card to the Edgewater, a local Hotel and Waterpark. As one of the rewards for good results on our January Health Plan we spent the night on Thursday night, enjoying hotel food and repeated trips to swim, splash, run around, and go down the water slides. Fun. Also enjoyable was the 80+ degree temperatures in the waterpark and the nearly 80 degree temperatures in our hotel room. (Within the waterpark, they had one of those indoor/outdoor thermometers, much like mine shown below. A nice touch.) Our room reservation was even upgraded for free to a bigger suite that was available very close to the waterpark, making it that much more enjoyable.

Shaved Ice

It is nice when you find a tool that works tremendously well for a particular purpose.

Shaved ice is something that is nice in the summer (think snow cones) and essential for the queasy stomachs of sick people. I don't know how many inefficient ways we tried making shaved or crushed ice in the past, like pounding on ziplock bags of ice with a rolling pin. Most ice shavers you buy require large frozen chunks of ice that are hard to make and take a long time to freeze. They work well, but you need that frozen chunk first.

A few years ago I found an Ice Grating Disc for our KitchenAid Food Processor that works wonders making piles of snow-like shaved ice from plain old ice cubes--just what's needed for a sick family or on a hot summer day. (Can you picture one of those hot summer days in your mind? I know you can.) I highly recommend this disc if you already have a KitchenAid Food Processor.

Dogsledding

Here's something you can't see anytime or even anywhere. Once a year, I can walk three blocks from my home and watch dogsledders running a marathon. The start of the John Beargrease Marathon is less than half a mile from that point, and we can watch the dogs and sledders go by. Very interesting. This year there is plenty of snow, and the temperature is very nice for hardworking dogs, too. (Meaning it's mighty cold.)

By the way, if you listened to the Prairie Home Companion radio show last night, you heard it broadcast live from Duluth's Entertainment and Convention Center, and they even had a couple of dog sledders and dogs there. I was at the DECC later in the evening, for a hockey game, but picked up a program just for the fun of it.

A Good Sleeper

My youngest son, Joshua, is 20 months old. As any parent of several children will tell you, they are all different, but one thing about Joshua is he LOVES to sleep. He takes a regular 2 hour nap after lunch and sleeps from about 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. And typically, if he is well fed and not sick, he'll practically climb into his crib and go to sleep without a peep. Wow. None of the rocking and the walking around carrying a baby and the crying that we went through with all the other children. I couldn't begin to count all the books I've read or hymns I've sung getting the other children to bed. I woudn't give it up at all, of course, but I'm just amazed at how well Joshua hits the hay!

Statistical Leader

I'm proud of my oldest daughter, Hannah, who is currently the region's leading high school girls' basketball rebound leader, with 16.6 rebounds per game. Read the Duluth News Tribune's stats here. Hannah started playing basketball last year, and has really done a great job over the past two years. Congratulations, Hannah.

OFL Cold

A number of years ago, a good friend gave me this atomic clock and thermometer with an outdoor transmitter that lets you know INSIDE what the temperature is OUTSIDE. Pretty cool. I've always liked it. But it was not really designed with a Duluth temperature range in mind. The lowest temperature it records is minus 23, and below that, the display simply gives the letters "OFL," an acronymn which I think indicates "Outside Farenheit Limits" due to the fact that when I switch the display to celsius it reads "OCL." Still, that "OFL" reading is kind of fun to see. My wife, though, takes the three letters as a word in its own right, and reads it as the thermometer's evalution of the temperature as "awful."

The Franck January 2009 Health Plan

There's a new poster up on our refrigerator: the Franck January 2009 Health plan.

Each member of the family can earn points each day for such things as: no sweets, chocolate, candy, pie, or cake; exercising 30 minutes; no pop, energy drinks, kool-aid, (or beer); eating 1 cup of vegetables in two 1/2 cup servings; losing pounds of weight; and drinking 8 cups of water in a day. A cumulative tally will be kept, with community prizes like spend a night at the Edgewater resort with waterpark, take a trip to the Cities, go to the YMCA, etc. More rewards will be posted.


This will certainly be an interesting and hopefully healthy January.