A cabin fever story with some picture parts

You know it's cold when your husband goes to warm up his car and the door is so frozen, it stops working. It becomes a non-closing door. Then you have to bundle up your kiddos at nap time and drive the needs-to-fly-away-for-work-again husband to the airport. And even though it's totally annoying, you know it's not his fault. You graciously forgo naps so he doesn't have to drive away in a car with an open door, freezing wind blowing across his face.

This surprise trip to the airport does cause a missed nap for the youngest, so you spend the cold day indoors while he does this:

And this:

(He's actually feeling much better these days, by the way. We're all so relieved for him. He's more content and playful. At least when he's had his nap. So we're pretty sure his noggin is adjusting to the shunt. (Why does that have to be what it's called? Weird word.) So YAY!)

Anyway, I digress.

You know it's cold when the furnace rarely ever takes a break, and you really know it's cold when you step outside to get the mail and find you can't move.

And you know it's cold when you hear the furnace click on yet again, and realize your drying skin may just flake off in sheets. You know, like a snake skin.

No, no, no I'm not really complaining. Just sharing. I realize waaaay below freezing temperatures are not the worst thing to deal with. Especially when you have a furnace working over-time and blankets to climb under.

After all, I did meet someone yesterday who may not have those things. I was getting back in my car after dropping Miles at a play date down the street (yes, it's that cold, I DROVE down the street), when I was approached by a man saying, "Excuse me" over and over. I turned to see what he needed and he (and I'm not making this up) said "I need five dollars for some ice cream."

Uuuum, ya know what? That's just plain silly. I'm the type of person who would fork over five bucks if someone asked. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they really do need formula for their baby or gas to get to work, who am I to judge? But ICE CREAM? It's NEGATIVE TEN (don't even get me started on the wind chill) AND YOU'RE ASKING ME FOR MONEY FOR ICE CREAM? I don't know, man.

But I do know it's cold these days. And I do know that means we have some major cabin fever going on over here.

So we made a robot:

Daddy in robot-Not quite his size

And we're also trying new recipes to pass the time. Check this out:

I realize you can't really tell what this is, so I'll tell you.

I saw this recipe over at funny girl and had to try it. It's a snack mix with popcorn, fritos corn chips, and corn pops. I don't know if it has a name. Besides YUM. You make it extra-sweet-and-salty-yummy by melting white chips and pouring them over the mix (oh, and stirring it). It sounds really weird, but it's amazing! (That was my way of sharing a recipe. If you want the actual recipe, you should visit funny girl.)

I do want to name this snack mix something cool with "corn" in the title, if you want to help me out. If I choose your suggestion, I'll tell all of blogland (or at least a tiny little part of it) how cool you are.

I must also confess that when it's this cold, I'm not constantly "baking" and creating costumes and playing superheros. Nope. PBS is my friend: