It is over. And I survived. Sure, in my area records were tied for lowest recorded temperature. Yes, being outside in said cold was unpleasant.
By the second night of 10 degree lows (ambient, not wind chill), my bedroom with its lone electric heater was chilly. Not cold, just chilly. I only turned my heated mattress up to 4 from the usual 2, and continued my decades-old custom of sleeping in the buff. Comfortably.
I was concerned about my outside spigot during the cold snap, though. Due to my masonry bit being too small for the job, the CPVC-to-pipe thread adapter is exposed in addition to the spigot itself. Since the pipe runs down the bedroom wall, and there is no separate valve in that line, a catastrophic failure could get really messy in a hurry. On the first night, I left it open far enough for a trickle of water to escape. So much for moving water not freezing. It froze closed before I got home from work that night. It has since thawed out, and no cracks, leaks, or worse have appeared. Either I got lucky, or CPVC is reasonably resilient when it comes to freezing.
That was it. I had gas for the genset so we would stay warm even if the wind knocked out power, but such was unnecessary. Apocalypse, my fat hairy ass!
Grumpy Bastard 