Indiana isn't breaking us in easily...

So, it's winter in Indiana, and apparently, winters are a bit rougher here than those we experienced in Lexington.  I could be wrong, but it feels like we've seen way more of this:

already this winter in Plainfield than we did all seven years in Lexington.  Now, my kids were actually looking forward to a little more snow, and even I can admit that it's pretty, so not all bad, right?  I can take a day like today, basically getting snowed it with 8-13 new inches of snow (after 5 or 6 a few days ago).  The temperature outside is a balmy 31 degrees.  If I weren't afraid of coming home looking like this:

or falling and breaking a leg or something, I might even go for a run in that temperature.

We're not exactly a winter sports family.  I've been skiing a few times.  It wasn't fun, it was cold.  Sledding is slightly better, but not as fun away from WV.  I mean, in WV, you very likely have a nice hill in your back yard, where you can get quickly back inside to warm up.  In Indiana, not so much.

Besides the inevitable Detroit jokes, people ask us why we moved away from Michigan.  Yes, it was somewhat job related, but mostly, it was so COLD!  All I kept telling myself as we prepared for the move here was, at least it's not as far north as Metro Detroit.

Ha, the joke's on me.  We are experiencing the coldest Indy area temps in 20 years starting tonight.  Oh, and would you like to guess where I was almost exactly 20 years ago during the last record lows?  Yep, Plymouth, Michigan.  "In records dating to 1874, Detroit has only had five calendar days during which the daytime high has failed to reach zero, the last of which was their all-time coldest daily high, -4 degrees on Jan. 19, 1994."  Feel free to see this Weather Channel article for more details.

Brr!  Times are a little different for us now.  Back then, we were basically still newlyweds just out of college, living far away from both of our families for the first time in our lives.  We had two used cars, and even with a (detached) garage, Darrell had to put their batteries on charge each night to get them to start each morning for work.  It was so cold, that a lot of the paint fell off of our first house that winter.

Today, we have a much nicer house and garage.  We have two kids, a dog, two cats and two hamsters instead of just one cat.  But isn't it funny how things have a way of coming full circle sometimes?  I just hope that thought comforts me tonight as the arctic winds howl and the temperatures dip, and dip, and dip.