Soup and frostbite symptoms

Hearty Beef Stew to warm up your day!

I think its time for a bowl of soup to warm up.

• Lemony Chicken Noodle Soup
• French Onion Soup
• Hearty Beef Stew 

It is below zero and double digit negative temperature right now and its the "warmest" part of the day. This cold spell has displaced my heat, stolen my beauty sleep and numbed my brain.

The main thing this cold January day is to stay warm and watch for signs of frostbite or hypothermia. Hopefully in 24 more hours the temperatures can rise and warm up my little neck of the woods.

Cold weather and hypothermia

Chicken Soup Submissions Wanted

Topics for possible upcoming books for Chicken Soup for the Soul

Deadline extended from December 31, 2013 to February 3, 2014.

My Guardian Angel stories from people who believe that they have encountered or been helped by angels. How did your angel manifest himself or herself?

How did your angel help you or someone you know? Please do not send stories about people who are "angels" because they do nice things, and also please do not submit eulogies where you say that your loved one is now an angel.

The deadline for story and poem submissions has been extended from December 31, 2013 to February 3, 2014. If you have already submitted a story or poem for this title please do not submit it to us again. We have it in our database and it will be considered for this title.

Reboot Your Life stories are all about a time when you were in a rut or your life being boring and dull. Hopefully you did something positive about that. What kind of major changes did you make that brought back purpose, passion and joy?

Did you start a completely new career, have a travel adventure or find a new hobby? Was it a new love interest or an attitude adjustment that helped you reboot your life? Chicken Soup for the Soul publishers want to hear your stories.

Stories can be serious or funny, but we definitely want them to inspire our readers to take a chance and give them the courage to reboot their own lives. The deadline for story and poem submissions is January 30, 2014.

All about birds on National Bird Day, just for fun

Many folks are bird watchers including myself. I usually don't know one type from another except a cardinal, blue jay, robin, hummingbird and a crow. Instead of getting involved in a local bird counting because I don't know many bird species and I hate math not to mention my memory sux anymore, I prefer to do different things when it comes to birds, I like find them in a bird word search puzzle

My mother used to have a clock that would tweet a different bird song on the hour. I always loved that and I even owned one myself. If you want to learn to name that bird here is the perfect place to listen and learn about the birds with a bird quiz.

How to avoid having bird collisions with your windows. 

Spring is not anywhere near but here is a recipe to make your own Hummingbird Nectar. I do this every year and have beautiful little fluttery birds around my porch.

Recipe 

1 cup white granulated sugar
4 cups hot boiling water

Boil more than four cups of water on the stove top. When you use more than four cups of water, you can adjust to the loss of water from steam. Carefully measure out four cups of boiling water into a large bowl. 

Add one cup of white granulated sugar. Mix the white granulated sugar and water together until all of the sugar is dissolved. Carefully place the mixture into the refrigerator to cool, usually overnight. When mixture is cold, take the mixture of the refrigerator. You now have a bowl of hummingbird food. 

Polar Vortex: What is it and why do we even want to know?

Polar Vortex is to blame for the cold spell we are having in the Midwest. What is a polar vortex? 

According to Wikipedia, a polar vortex is a polar cyclone. They can be mignogno cyclones, polar vortices, Arctic cyclones, sub-polar cyclones and circumpolar whirl is a persistent, large-scale cyclone located near one or both of a planet's geographical poles. 

A fictional example of what a polar vortex is similar to the 2004 movie The Day After Tomorrow which depicted three extremely strong polar vortices developing over and devastating the northern half of the globe.  They are supposed to be related by climate change and global warming. Polar vortices are strongest in the winter. 

In short, it is cold out and going to get much colder over the next two days. The winds are blowing and it has went from rain to snow, snow to rain and back to snow again and a lot of wind. Tomorrow morning is supposed to be negative double-digits will continue for two days. 

Let's hope these vortices do not produce dangerous scenarios like the movie. Be prepared and be safe.