* Driving through Mc-Cook as well as other area towns, my kids noticed that nearly all the cities as well as many residences still had their Christmas decorations hanging from the roofs and light poles.

After explaining that city workers were likely busy with other duties such as snow removal and power restoration since the holidays passed, I asked my kids if they had looked at the outside of their own house lately. While we never did get our Christmas lights up around the roof, a few wreaths and strands of lights adorned our patio over the holidays  where they still hang as we enter February. The ends of the lights are encrusted in the snow and ice and won't be moving until a long, warm spell hits the area.

To add insult to injury, there are those people who not only got their lights up before Christmas arrived, but were on top of things and took their lights down between Christmas and New Year's instead of just leaving them up for next year's holiday season  to roll around.

* THE WEEKEND is here. If anyone has been reading or listening to the news over the past two weeks, then you've likely heard about the giant snow storm which was supposed to hit our area -- according to the Farmer's Almanac. People were giving the forecast credence because it had correctly anticipated our area's snowfall, including a forecast that we would have snow several weekends in a row in January.

That forecast was followed by the forecast that we would be hit with the Storm of the Century.

As soon as everyone started talking about the Storm of the Century which was supposed to arrive on Super Bowl Sunday, I made my own prediction that we wouldn't get a flake, much less the several feet being predicted.

But it wasn't just the hoopla surrounding the so-called storm that doomed the forecast. I knew it wasn't going to snow because my family and I weren't planning on driving anywhere. If only I would have penciled in a road trip somewhere, we would all be stocking up on milk and eggs.

* It's not hard to figure out who lives in the country on a gravel or dirt road versus those with a paved street running in front of their house. After a day with temperatures above 32 degrees, those of us with crater-filled, mud-covered, oops I mean, dirt roads are the ones hoping for the temperatures to dip below freezing after a day of thawing temperatures. We just want to make it home rather than getting stuck in mud up to our axles.

Once the temperatures drop and the roads freeze, dirt-road dwellers do have a luxury those on paved roads miss out on: Putting the vehicle's tires in the ruts and the letting the road do the steering.

* With these fluctuations between freezing nights and thawing afternoons, we're faced with a conundrum: Do you wash your vehicle or do you just leave the layers of dirt and mud in place until spring?

I fall into the latter category. Unless I've washed my vehicle's windows in the past day, I can barely see out and I know I'm not alone.

I saw a vehicle this week that was so dirty, I couldn't tell what state it was from. In fact, I couldn't tell the make of the vehicle, much less its true color. I'm pretty sure it was a SUV, but I'm not even positive on that one.

I've seen a few people venturing into the car washes, attempting to have a clean vehicle in the midst of a real winter. More power to them. I'm sure they'll be back in the car wash bay next week and the next week and the next week.

-- Ronda Graff will make an announcement when she plans to hit the road again, so everyone can plan for the next snow storm.