Frozen Pipes and Polar Vortex Memories

It's still very cold, although we're now on the back side of this Polar Vortex. However, the current temp is -24 F (-31.1 C), so it's not beach time yet. The last time we had extreme cold of this depth was near the end of January/beginning of February 1996. I remember it well - I was closing up my Mall of America shop and moving everything into my current storefront, merging the two stores together into one. The night that I closed and we were moving display cases and furniture from the moving truck into the new location, it was -23 F, diving to -27 F the following day. I think DH, Chickie and I were hoping we'd never have to experience that degree of cold again, but here we are - Polar Vortex #2 for us. 

Look for that darkest red. See that -65? Look a bit to the right and
down and you'll see a -51. That's me! Whoot!!!  Damn it's cold!!!

I decided to close the store yesterday because of the cold. Even though it's just as cold right now, our temps are actually going to start rising beginning today, and by Saturday we'll actually be hovering right around freezing. It'll feel like a good day to go to the beach - well, not really, but it will be a very nice change. So we just have to make it through a couple more days of stifling cold. 

The fact that the last time we had a Polar Vortex like this was twenty-two
years ago should make me feel better, but I probably could have
lived without repeating that experience. There we are again, in
the magenta color along with Wisconsin and parts of Illinois. Since
Chicago was affected, that headed the news, even though we were
actually a bit colder. 

On the home front, the cold managed to freeze a section of plumbing piping leading to the toilet in DH's bathroom. It's almost unreachable, and we spent all yesterday working on clearing out our sub-basement attic, attacking the pipe from the top and the bottom with a hair dryer and portable heater, and continuing the process again and again and again until finally, in the late afternoon, we had running water again. 

We know that pipe is a problem. It runs along the exterior wall of the
house and there's not enough insulation in spots there. We always keep
an eye on it and some cupboard doors, etc are kept open to help
equalize the temps. This time we got caught with a small
blockage and it took all day to get it handled. 

Because we're still in the deep freeze, however, we left lots of doors open, flushed that toilet every 1-2 hours, and keep the portable heater on until close to midnight. I turned the heater back on when I awoke at 2:45 am, and I'll keep it on now. I'm undecided about whether to go to the gym or not. It's still beastly cold. I skipped yesterday because I practically had frost bite just getting gas into the car first thing yesterday morning. I might just skip a second day because of the cold, and plan on some floor work tomorrow and the pool on Saturday. That way I can still keep an eye on the heater until I leave for work at 6:30 am. 

Here's hoping all of you are staying safe and warm and content. Take care of yourselves and I'll be back tomorrow, hopefully a little more defrosted.