Good morning or good evening, wherever you may be. It is just past 3:30 a.m. in "The City."

We are under a Winter Weather Advisory from now, well actually 1:00 a.m. EST until later today @ 2:00 p.m. EST. The NWS is forecasting a mix of rain/sleet/snow @ 100% with hazardous driving conditions, drifting snow with two to four inches of additional snow, and winds that may reach 27 mph. We were supposed to attend our book club this afternoon, but we are not into walking when the sidewalks are icy and walking becomes hazardous so we won't be leaving the house to do any walking beyond the back-forty with the fur-children. Even with temperatures in the mid-40s, the rain will make the streets and sidewalks too slippery for us.

Wednesday, the temperature stays about the same, but the chance of precipitation drops to 50% with showers in the late afternoon and evening. According to the NWS, January temperatures in the Tri-Cities area will be on the warm side.

I was just remembering the question once posed by the late science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov regarding the four most commonly used words in the English language that end in "dous." Two are positive and two are negative. The two positive words are tremendous and stupendous. The negative words are horrendous and ???. I know the final word and so I used to query my students regarding that word. Sometimes they got it, and sometimes they didn't.

If you aren't a Crimson Tide fan, the final score in the College Championship game between the LSU Tigers and the Crimson Tide of Alabama was a tremendous 35 - 31. The final score came on a pass in the final one second of the game to give LSU its first championship since 1981. I didn't watch the game, but there are people out there who are either ecstatic or despondent.

Since we were planning on going to our book club meeting today, I baked a batch of oatmeal/raisin cookies to go with the chocolate chip cookies I baked last time to take along. Since we won't be there, there are more cookies for Mary and me. The fur-children can't share any of the cookies I've made since dogs can't safely ingest either chocolate nor raisins/grapes as well as anything with onions. If Ellen were here, I'm almost certain she could easily handle the chocolate chip cookies. : - )

Sadly, I thought my new mixer would be here yesterday, but it isn't scheduled to arrive until later today. I'll know when it comes as GTWD will be on sentry duty atop the back of the couch and she'll alert us when the UPS truck arrives. Speaking of Ginger, she wants to go with us in the car and pins herself to the door in the mud room when we are leaving. When we return, she is so excited that it takes Mary a few minutes to calm her down. There really isn't anything better than the unconditional love of a fur-child.

Yesterday afternoon, we made stops at the grocery store, the library, and JWs for dinner since we won't be going out today. I have some cooking to do today just because Mary will be busy indexing and I can get unfettered access to her kitchen. My sous dogs will be there to assist.

Otherwise, I have no specific plans. The sun will rise @ 8:15 a.m. and set @ 5:29 p.m. Ciao.