Today marked the “day after” Harper the Snowstorm’s dick move of dumping a whole lot of winter on us all at once. I wanted to stick to my New Year’s resolution of a “walk a day” (of at least 30 minutes minimum).

This was the reading on our car’s thermometer just before our walk today, but doesn’t take windchill factors into account.

Remember those times when you were a kid during Winter and under your mom’s orders, you bundled up in a snowsuit, or maybe just a parka and snow pants? If you grew up in the 1970s when nobody was concerned about choking hazards, perhaps you had a drawstring on your hooded jacket – or your homemade mittens had a string that fed into your sleeves – thus making it virtually impossible to lose your mittens?

Maybe when you got to REALLY playing outside, the mittens eventually came off, and you unzipped your jacket because you got a little warm from the exertion of dodging – AND hurling snowballs. Or the exertion of dragging your sled back to the top of the sledding hill. And of course your mom would yell at you to zip up your damned coat if she happened to see you while this was going on?

Well…today was NOT one of those days when ANY of the layers got unzipped or removed! My husband and I decided to give two middle fingers to Old Man Winter and take a walk outside in brutal winds and below zero temps (when windchill was accounted for). Temperatures during our walk were about -6. So…hoods then? And hats underneath the hoods? Yes sir!

The only layer I took off during this walk was my scarf because my husband’s nose got cold! Colder than mine, anyway…

Today, we decided to walk in Ann Arbor’s Gallup Park. We knew the city would keep the walkways cleared, even after a snowstorm of Hoth-like proportions.

Our pace was a little slower than this today – we finished this there-and-back route in 61 minutes.

After our walk, we stopped into the hipster-infested Cultivate Coffee and Tap House in Ypsilanti for some hot cocoa! Cultivate is a little too fancy to be our normal bar “scene,” but I knew it would be a good place for cocoa.

Cultivate was PACKED today! The server asked me if I was there for the Gilmore Girls theme trivia night, and I said, “No, I don’t know a damned thing about that series.”