Fimbul winter, is that you?

Well, we're under a winter storm warning until 6pm today. This makes week four of snowstorms. We have a fair amount of snow on the ground from the last two storms. I think we're up to a few feet. It's not quite to my knee but we're also not right in the lake effect area. My sister-in-law over in Attica has snow that's almost as tall as her youngest child. That's almost elbow deep snow.

Now, the problem isn't snow fall, unlike the folks downstate who are going to get the brunt of this storm. Nope, we have to be concerned about windchill. It's about 2pm right now and the temperatures are hovering around -5 deg Fahrenheit (-20 C). Tonight, I'm pretty sure that we're going to see temperatures below -15 deg F. I'm glad that putting up the curtain across the back door is keeping some of the cold out. We've a gap around the door that is large enough you can see daylight through it.

I have the blinds closed to keep some of the chill out of the main living area of the apartment. Still, I am awfully chilly right now. I'm sitting here at the desk with my warm slippers on over my thick socks, a blanket in my lap, and a sweater on. I'm half tempted to go get my cotton gloves (the white ones for keeping moisturizer on my hands instead of the pillows) and put them on so that my fingers aren't so chilly. I am not going to go out and do laundry at the laundromat today. It is just so cold that I think sitting at the laundromat before those big windows would be painfully cold for me, even with my wool coat on.

I am a bit stalled on my manuscript. My deadline is the 19th and I have about 60 pages to write. I have hit something of a block right now and the kids have been distracting me. With the boys being on break from school this week, I don't think I'm going to have enough mental focus to get this thing done by then. I'm kinda upset with that. I really wanted to get it done before Moura, and it seriously looks like that won't be the case. I am a bit nervous about this manuscript. I worry that it is going to come off as my attempt to peddle my own ideas and push some measure of politics onto the reader. This is the exact opposite of what I'm trying to do.

I think this is just the jitters that come with getting towards the end of this thing and getting ready to send it off to beta readers before publication. I think I'm going to quaff my hot chocolate and put on some music that is inspiring. Then I'm going to do my best to get a few more pages written. I may not be able to finish this by the 19th but I can get as close to done as I can manage. I just need to keep trying. After all, editing is where things really get polished and take shape.