You know it's cold when...

FROM THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE A WIND CHILL ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 12 PM CST MONDAY.

NORTHWEST WINDS BETWEEN 10 AND 15 MPH WILL COMBINE WITH TEMPERATURES FROM 10 TO 25 BELOW ZERO AND DRIVE WIND CHILLS INTO THE 20 TO 40 BELOW ZERO RANGE THIS MORNING. WITH TEMPERATURES TODAY ONLY CLIMBING INTO THE SINGLE DIGITS BELOW ZERO...WIND CHILLS WILL REMAIN FROM 20 TO 30 BELOW ZERO AS WINDS CONTINUE BETWEEN 10 AND 15 MPH. NORTHWEST WINDS WILL CONTINUE TO PRODUCE WIND CHILLS OF 25 TO 35 DEGREES BELOW ZERO INTO MONDAY MORNING ACROSS EAST CENTRAL MINNESOTA AND WEST CENTRAL WISCONSIN.

A WIND CHILL ADVISORY MEANS THAT VERY COLD AIR COMBINED WITH PROJECTED WIND SPEED WILL GENERATE DANGEROUSLY LOW WIND CHILLS. THIS WILL RESULT IN FROST BITE AND MAY LEAD TO HYPOTHERMIA IF PRECAUTIONS ARE NOT TAKEN. IF YOU MUST VENTURE OUTDOORS...MAKE SURE YOU WEAR A HAT AND GLOVES. IF YOU MUST TRAVEL... BE SURE YOUR CAR IS EQUIPPED WITH A WINTER SAFETY KIT IN CASE OF EMERGENCY.

You know it's cold when... (this is only half-meant to be funny... sadly.)

* Coming home to an apartment where the thermometer reads 58 degrees is like heaven on earth.
* Instead of your breath waiting until it gets outside your mouth to freeze, it just goes ahead and freezes over right where it's at.
* You wish God would have mades noses detachable.
* You can't see out the car windows because of 3 inches of road salt that accumulates each morning on them...
* ...and when you get out and clean them off, you still can't see out them because now your eyeglasses are not simply fogged over, but still so cold from the outside air that the fog instantly freezes on them and you need to use your fingernail as an ice scraper to get it off.
* 14 layers of clothes... and it feels like you're naked in the wind.
* The sound of your shoes always surprises you, because the rubber/soft soles instantly freeze and turn into a hard rock-like substance.
* You have to switch rosaries, going for the big-bead variety that you can feel through a mitten.
* You spent $$$$ on your car so that it would have heated front seats, but you can't even feel them... and they're working fine.
* The sky is so clear you can not only see Orion's belt, but his belt buckle!
* You can't read Dante anymore, because it's too disturbing to think that the icy center of hell might in fact be Minnesota in February.
* Even you touching your own fingernail is enough to give you goosebumps... so, for fun, why not brush it up against your co-worker's arm and give them goosebumps too? (What Minnesotans do for fun in the winter.)
* Flannel is sexy. Add wool socks and a fleece robe and...
* The thermometer says its -18 degrees outside... and you think that's being too optimistic.
* You have to do laundry every three days because you need to wear almost everything in your closet at once in order to stay alive.
* If you're the impatient type, the best penance you can impose on yourself is to say the Liturgy of the Hours... the only way to stand the cold is to do it with gloves on, but then the translucently-thin pages are dang near impossible to turn! Grrrrrrrrr!!!!!
* The car begins to whimper in pain, before you even turn the key. Sometimes it will even set its own car alarm off after being left outside too long - out of rage at being denied a garage space, I imagine.
* You wake up in the morning to find icicles on the inside of your window frame - and when you come home from work there's no sign of melting.
* Every bodily fluid (from earwax to snot to the vitreous fluid of your eyeballs to your lifeblood itself) suddenly staggers in midstride and turns to sludge as you leave the building.
* The weatherguy predicts a "warm-up" by the end of the week to -10 degrees... and when it's still -18 at the end of the week you are really disappointed.
* Every single person at Mass is wearing full-length coat, scarf, and mittens... including Father ("It's a stole! Really!")
* You can't wear a watch, earrings, necklace, anything metal against the skin, because they get "ice-hot" to touch within 35 seconds of exposure to the outside air.
* Only a fool goes outside after taking a shower without blow-drying. Guy or girl.
* Everybody does the 4-step Snow Scurry!! We scurry from our home to our car, from our car to our office, from the office to the car, and from the car to our home. Ideally, we dance it in double-time.
* You can't find your car in the parking lot anymore without setting off the alarm... because all the cars are the same color now - Road Salt Gray.
* When you finish saying your rosary and piously kiss the cross... it sticks.

For the record, my local 10-day forecast says... there may be hope ahead!

Keep warm! :)