I hate winter.

Especially winter in Missouri.  

Yesterday, we got up to 60 degrees Fahrenheit, here.  It got down to around 45 by the time I went to bed.  I knew a cold front was going to hit overnight, sometime.  I knew it was coming, but I still hate it.  Today's high temperature was at midnight, and it's been steadily sinking since then.  It was around 37 by my car's readout when I took the kids to school (I know that because that's where the "roads may be icy" nag light pops on).  

Right now, it's 35 degrees.  And we have a hard wind out of the east/northeast.  It has teeth.  

It's supposed to get down to around ten degrees tonight, and not climb out of the mid 20's tomorrow.  And won't touch the 40s again until Sunday.  

Cold sucks.  

I've been huddled under my electric lap blanket writing today.  Between feeling the cold more, and my joints being whiners, I've pretty much stayed put in one place.  Splitting between working on Pint and CPA.  

Honestly, I have been feeling a lot less bad recently.  I've started replenishing energy while sitting and resting (something that hasn't really happened for me for the past several years).  I've started being able to do a little more, and general pain levels have had a lower starting point.  

I am honestly not sure what's going on, but I'll take it.  And while I've got it, I'm going to work to bring my health and endurance up to a higher level than it initially was before everything went to shit to start with.  I've already got a good start--I'm about ten pounds less, according to the doctor's scales, than I was just after getting over pneumonia in '15.  

Granted, how I've gotten there hasn't been the best.*  And it was a hard slog to not lose too much weight too fast.**  It hasn't been helped by my bathroom scale abruptly deciding it was done working at all just after Christmas, either.***  

I have a difference of opinion with my doctor on how much more weight needs to come off.  I'm saying about ten pounds, she wants to see twenty.   

Honestly, though, I'll be fine keeping my weight where it is.  Since it won't come off my chest, and I've got skin that won't be going anywhere, and isn't weightless.   I just will, eventually, need a new scale to monitor on a weekly basis.  

I am doing better.  I am.  

But I still hate the cold.  Especially when it varies so much from one day to the next.  Whether my pain levels are low (for me) or high (for anyone), I hate the cold.  And I hate being cold. 

*My nerves do this weird thing...when I'm under enough stress, my body goes "your food intake...is going to be limited one way or another.  You can either not eat before this specific time (which varies, but usually falls after my thyroid meds cut off), or you can throw up."  I hate throwing up...so I hadn't been eating before supper for...most of last year.  And then a snack later to take meds before going to bed.  

**If you don't eat enough to maintain your minimum metabolic requirements for calories, you can seriously,  permanently damage your metabolism.  As in, your metabolism slows, when you eat, you put on weight, and you can't get it back off...because your body thinks you almost starved, and is trying to keep you from going that close to the edge again by replacing, adding to, then conserving the safety margin.  And each person's requirements vary according to height, weight, activity level, and biological sex, but minimums generally run (for me) around 11-1300 calories per day.  Limited the way I was last year...that was sometimes difficult.  

***Up until around Christmas, my scales weren't accurate, but they were consistent.  They stopped being consistent just after Christmas.