Heat turned down – check! All lights are off – check! Stove and oven are off – check! Plants watered – check! Mail delivery stopped – check! Doors locked – check! Everything we need is packed – hopefully! In February we escaped from the cold and snow for (only) a week to visit family in Florida. Unfortunately, we were still home when the thermometer dipped to over 40 below, but we did avoid the many large snowfalls during the week that we basked in the sun with temperatures i

This year’s wild winter weather has brought back some fun memories of my childhood. I was born in the 1970s and a consider myself a “child of the 1980s.” There were some cold and snowy winters back in those days, and my brothers and I always loved a good snow storm. It opened up so many more options for us. The Palmer boys were fort builders, so we spent hours and hours building elaborate snow tunnels, caves and forts. The more the snow, the bigger the forts. But building for