table of plenty: Our thermostat: 64. Actual temperature in house: 79, and in other news...

Now that makes for one weird wake-up when one is snuggled under a mound of down in order to combat winter's chilly breath.

I felt like I was breathing in desert air: hot and dry. No wonder Anna was up roaming the halls! Who can sleep in that?

Service Plus instructed us to turn off the furnace, and if we couldn't figure out how to do that, it would be treated as an emergency. It is a good thing Jim was still home, since I have no idea how to figure out that furnace with gas and water lines twisting and turning their way in and out of it. Puzzles aren't my strong suit, and this furnace would have left me confounded.

Shorts in almost-December? Hey, I've never baked Christmas cookies in such attire! And the first batch are on the schedule for today. It is amazing what one can get done over Thanksgiving Break when the hosting is at another house! This year, all we do is show up with pies in hand. How easy is that? But really, who wants to even turn on the oven when it is so hot in the house. Akin to simmering a pot roast in August. Yuck!

Emma Kate, hailing from the tropical shores of China, should feel right at home. Maybe a bit of a grace note for her, in lieu of falling temperatures outside the likes of which she has never seen. The ice storm we had on Saturday night left one confused girl on Sunday morning when the world was a skating rink. Two tumbling siblings and one other intentionally flinging himself down the driveway with three large teenage-bodied friends who had slept over equals one highly skeptical new citizen in Emma Kate. She was very sure she'd landed on planet strange. Considering the body gyrations the teen set were making as they skated hither and yon over the ice-covered streets, she was spot on!

But I digress. The furnace, you ask? Maybe you didn't; but the furnace. Well, let us first state that it isn't "fixed" per se, but it is suddenly operational. Sort of like when you take your child with the 104.5 degree temperature and profuse vomiting to the pediatrician, only to have said child appear perky and robust with no temperature in sight and a hearty appetite to boost. Go figure. We're now on the "stat" call list...maybe that's a bit like the button you can push at the hospital if something is seriously wrong. Code blue? Code Blue is nothing to joke about, and I'm hoping it is not the future of our furnace calls either.

Tomorrow is a big day. (This is a segue, in case you are having brain ricochet from my lightning-like transitions.) Emma Kate has an appointment at the U of MN International Adoption Clinic. Jim took the day off so that he can also come. He's such an incredible daddy to his kids. We will hopefully receive a good opinion on our options for surgery and be able to quickly make decisions and schedule procedures (or re-schedule, as the case may be). I'll keep you posted.

And finally, last but not least, here's a peek of what our little snow bunny looked like on her first snow outing! It might be hot inside, but baby it is cold outside...