With Apologies to Laura Ingalls Wilder and Al Gore

Little House on the Prairie was a favorite series of books when I was young. We lived in a fake log cabin in the woods in Minnesota. I wanted to be Laura Ingalls. I wore lots of calico dresses, and when I was doing chores around the house, I assumed her persona. I thought all the hardship was extremely romantic and much more than wanting to live with Princess and Bud and Kitten or The Beav...I wanted to live with Ma and Pa and Mary in a little house in the woods or the prairie.

And, I know that global warming is a huge concern, and that Al Gore has done a terrific job of getting the word out in recent years. And, I honestly do know that global warming can not be measured by a single season or a single year...I often hear people say..."Oh yeah...global warming...we had a winter here with no snow." or "It was the hottest summer EVER...it must be global warming."

I totally get that it is nowhere near that simple. And, I also understand that right now the unusual weather conditions we are experiencing are caused, at least in part by a much more localized, much more short term little weather system in the Pacific known as El Nino.

But I want to say that this is the coldest winter I have been witness to in southern Arizona. And, heating our home with a woodstove (ala the Wilder family), is getting really old. I am not enjoying the non-global warming in southeastern Arizona. And I don't want to be Laura anymore!!