It's a frozen world......

In trying to be a more frequent blogger in 2010, here's my first installment. I do realize, however, that this is just like any other New Years resolution, I'm all gung-ho in January, but let's see what happens in the coming weeks and months..... Ha ha ha.....

This morning I was admiring the icy patches on the lake behind our house and thinking how much they had shrunk in the past couple of days. This is the first year since we've been here that we've seen any ice at all on the lake or ponds. At about that same time, Sam Champion on Good Morning America was telling me that our temperature was expected to "soar" to nearly 60 degrees today. With that in mind and camera in hand, I decided it was "do or die time" for getting photos of the ice in our neighborhood. So, at 8:30 AM I set out, all bundled up, at 28 degrees and took some fun pictures of our little corner of a winter wonderland. As you can see from these two pictures, there are still huge areas of ice on the top of the lake. Last week, the entire top of the lake had a thin covering of ice, but this is how it looked this morning:

Next I decided to take a couple of shots of the pond behind our next-door neighbor's house. This pond doesn't get much sunlight during the day and is, therefore, still completely covered with ice. I liked some of the artsy shots I got of this water. This was partly because I was able to get closer to the edge without sinking into mud!!

And last, but not least, I made a stop at our outdoor mini fridge. When this little gem was no longer needed in dorm rooms at colleges, it took up residence in our garage. One weekend when we were having an outdoor gathering at our house we moved it to the back deck of our house in Nashville. I lived there until we moved to South Carolina and has been outside our back door at this house since the day we moved in. We've never, EVER had a problem like this with our brave little fridge. (I will admit that it had some problems keeping up with the heat in Nashville, since it sat in the blazing sun all afternoon!!) Here's the latest story on our mini fridge:

Last week while I was awaiting Chris and April's arrival, I heard a noise out back that sounded strangely like a shotgun blast. Being that we live in a populated area I decided someone found an errant fire cracker and decided to "get rid of it". However, I looked out back and didn't see anyone or any thing, so I just forgot about it. The next day, Chris went out to get a drink out of the fridge and called me over to look out the door. Unbelievably, one of the cans of soda had frozen and burst!! Now I knew what the "shotgun" noise I heard was all about!! Once this discovery was made, we knew what the noise was as quite a few more cans burst over the next couple of days. We decided that there was nothing to be done about this, as the temperature was not rising above freezing any time in the near future, so the best we could do was hum "Another One Bites the Dust" each time we heard an explosion. I'm glad we left the cans in the fridge, as some of these explosions were violent enough to blow the door open!!! Here are a couple of photos of our catastrophe:

Unfortunately, Dad, I'm afraid your rootbeer is going to have to go too. Although it hasn't "blown" yet, it's ready to go at any minute!!!

Now it's time for my disclaimer: Although many cans of soda (of all types) have exploded in this refrigerator, no alcohol was harmed in this experience. Although my son-in-law (I love you, Bryan) accused me of alcohol abuse, I will, at this time, openly avow that no beer or other alcohol-related item was frozen or exploded. There, now I feel better!!!!!

All of my exploits this morning took about 30 minutes. When I got back in the house I found that the outdoor temperature had soared to a whopping 35 degrees. It looks like I have my work cut out for me today...... Cleaning out the mini fridge and FINALLY giving my filthy car a bath!!!

Have a great day!! Love you all......