A Chill Saturday Morning

So much of December thus far has been gorgeous and warm, which is much to my liking. We haven't had a single day with a high lower than 50°F. We've had eight days in the 60s, and three in the 70s. It's been pretty nice, if you ask me!

But on this fine Saturday morning, after I made a lot of headway cleaning up the dishes from last night's delightful dinner party, and I took some recycling outside to the roll cart, it was clear that this was a winter day. At just shy of 7:30 am, it was a brisk, clear, sunny 26°F here in Winston-Salem.

I realize it's all relative, of course...later in the winter I'm going to wish it was as high as 26°F, I'm sure!

Fire No. 31

With a forecast high today that stays in the 40s, and with this chilly start, it seemed a good time to get a fire going for the first time this season.

By the way, as you might imagine, my sister in Indiana was not at all pleased when I sent her the following screenshot of the forecast here for Christmas this year:

[Click to Enlarge]

As of yesterday, I am officially on my Christmas vacation, so I'm looking forward to using today to catch up on the blog, get some laundry done, probably do a little baking, perhaps continue updating some presentation powerpoints...and enjoy the heck out of this fire.

Tonight is the Joe and Lucy Milner Christmas party, and that's something to look forward to as well. Lucy was my teacher in the summer Governor's School program back in 1982, and Joe was a professor of mine in my master's program at Wake Forest, and then he was my department chair when I was on faculty there in the early 2000s. This Christmas party is quite special to me, because I've been fortunate to be on their guest list now for nearly 30 years. They are a terrific couple of people.