I'm pulling out all the stops to try to get it to snow. I was almost successful this morning. We had a little snow but it quickly changed to sleet. The temperature stayed at 32 almost all day so any moisture that fell from above coated everything with a thin layer of ice. I had planned to drive to Rocky Hill to visit my mother but the ice changed my plans for me.
Instead I stayed home and did some much needed cleaning in my basement. What I want to know is....how can I work so hard all day long and my basement still looks the same way it did this morning? I really think that I need to retire just so that I can have the time to get my house straightened out. I have so much accumulated stuff that needs to be tossed. Things like the 9 volumes of the works of Victor Hugo, 13 volumes of the works of Rudyard Kipling and 42 volumes of the Great Books of the Western World such as Plutarch, Plotinus, Augustine, Spinoza, Huygens. ???? These things I will NEVER read if I live to be 850 years old. How To Read Palms. Why did I ever buy that? I don't think I'll ever go into that business unless they all agree to use hand sanitizer before I start reading. I think it's time to weed my shelves and make space for newer and more useful stuff.
The sleet and freezing rain have changed to plain rain tonight but the temperature is only 35 so it is a cold and nasty rain. It's a good night to stay inside where it's nice and warm.......and watch the UCONN women play basketball. It doesn't look like my snow dreams will come true this week. I can only hope for next week.
Thanksgiving is creeping up on me and, as usual, I am so far from ready. The only thing I have bought so far is the turkey. Right now it is in the fridge trying to thaw out. I keep poking at it and hoping I will feel a little bit of give, but right now all I feel is hard frozen turkey. Oh please let it thaw by Thanksgiving morning.
I did try to do a little shopping after school today but all I ended up with were decorating items. That's the part of Thanksgiving that I like........getting the house ready and making it look Thanksgivingie. The part I hate about Thanksgiving....the cooking. That's not very good on a day like Thanksgiving where food is THE star of the day. But I love the eating part. I guess that is my reward for slogging through the food prep and cooking.
I only have tomorrow to shop. I guess I better go make a list before I go to bed.
Gas prices today: $1.84/gallon. Wowie.
It was COLD and WINDY out there today. Really nippy. I went to a baby shower and on the way home I heard on the radio that the temperature was 28 degrees in our area and 31 degrees in Sibera. We were chillier than cold Siberia. I won't question that at all.
With our wood stove crackling away in the gathering room and our gas fireplace flickering on the porch we are cozy and warm. Several weeks ago, when things started looking wintry, I stopped at Penny's to treat myself to a new pair of warm pajamas. The only thing I could find were short sleeved gowns and pajamas. Short-sleeves as winter is rearing it's ugly head?? They put Christmas displays out in September but they can't get winter pajamas in November? I went back again last week and found one rack that, lo and behold, had winter pajamas. I found a pair of fleece pajamas. I have worn flannel ones but I have never tried the fleece. They felt so invitingly soft that I thought I would take them home and try them.
Well..........am I glad that I did. Those are absolutely the warmest, coziest, cuddliest, softest things that have ever touched my body. I never knew anything could feel so good. I mean..........I really cannot wait every night to go to bed so I can put them on. Seriously. If you have never bought yourself fleece pajamas, go out and do it now. They are SO good. One of the 10 best pleasures in life.
I'm off to climb into bed with my fleece..........and I can't wait.
I felt like I was a time traveler yesterday as I drove my car past the gas station and saw that gas was selling for $1.97 a gallon. This was even better than the other day. I NEVER thought I would see gas under $2.00 again, especially after seeing it climb towards $4.00 a gallon this summer. It's still not quite as good as the days when you could drive up to a gas pump, flutter a dollar bill out the window and say "A dollar's worth, please." As they were putting that dollar's worth in for you they were washing your windows, checking your oil and putting new oil in if yours was low. Those days are gone forever but right now I'm happy just to be paying under $2.00 a gallon for gas. I wonder how long before it goes back up again.
It is really really cold and windy out. And there is no let up in sight. I think winter has come to stay. There will be no warm November days to let me finish up my garden work. All those things I had planned to do..........it doesn't look like they are going to get done. Maybe next year. Right now I'm looking forward to some cozy nights in front of the fire, listening to the wind roar as I read my book..........and count my blessings.
Things are getting better! We had our first snow squall today. Winter is getting closer. It happened while I was on bus duty. The wind was furiously blowing snow at me. My long black winter coat (with the silver sled pin, my hopeful omen, on the lapel) was covered with white. And I was inebriated with happiness. It only lasted a short while but it filled me with all kinds of winter anticipation. I can't wait until the ground is white.
Do any of you look forward to winter this much???
I got gas today for $2.12 a gallon. Wow. I never thought I would see it that cheap again. It sure felt good. I know someone who, with discounts that the grocery stores are offering, paid $1.19. Pretty soon the price will go back up again because we are all buying it. Crazy world.
Born when I was 15 months old, my sister, Lauri, has been a constant in my life. I have never known life without her. She has been with me for over 60 years. When we were small we shared the same room. After we were tucked into bed each evening we began a marathon session of giggles, story telling and playing made-up games such as "coming out of the cow" that went on long after the lights were out. My poor mother was often forced to yell up the stairs, "If you girls don't quiet down and go to sleep I will turn the hall light out............NOW!" Sometimes she had to follow through on her threat, which would reduce us to hysterical drama-queen type tears. The daylight hours would find us having tea parties with our dolls or playing school or building forts in the hayloft. When we entered the teen years things changed. In true teen-age hormonal fashion an imaginary line was drawn down the center of the room. Her things had to stay on her side of the room and mine had to stay on my side. We each watched the other side with eagle-eyes to make sure that rule was not broken. There was less story-telling and giggles. We were into our own worlds. Lauri sometimes teased my few boy-friends mercilessly, especially the Little Rapp Boy. Her practical jokes showed how funny and creative a person she is.
When we went off to college we ended up at the same school. I'm glad we did. It felt nice to have her around. It felt normal. After all, she had always been in my life.
We got married and we moved apart. But we still did things together..........
................like having babies. (nice pants, Midge) We have married husbands that are eerily similar. We both enjoy reading, antiquing and gardening. We love clotheslines. The bedtime marathon sessions of giggles and storytelling are gone. Now we share stories of our families and our everyday lives.
It's been great having a sister for 60 plus years. Here's to many many more. Happy Birthday, Lala!
When we built our house in 1978 we had big plans but little money. My father offered to help us out by digging our cellar hole at a price we could afford. We took him up on the offer. Financially, it was a big help to us but I also knew that it was something my father loved to do. My father loved his farm machinery as much as he loved his cows. He was happiest when he was revving up his engines and moving heaven and earth with his bulldozer. Often I would wander down to the building site and watch my father as he moved the earth and slowly turned a piece of meadowland into the foundation of a home. The sound of a bulldozer today projects an image in my little farmer brain of my father bouncing up and down in the seat, at peace with the world.
When my father passed away his bulldozer was sitting in his half finished barn on the Mosquito Path and there it stayed. No one knew quite what to do with it. It's not something you bring home and park in your driveway. It wasn't working well. We hesitated to get rid of it because, well, it was part of my father and you just can't get rid of things like that easily. So it has been sitting in the elements for the past 10 years.
Now...........it seems Paul has always had a hankering for a bulldozer (I have said before that I have married my father). He has "stuff" he would like to do with a bulldozer. Lots of "stuff". So this summer he decided to buy the bulldozer from the family. He had it hauled down here. He searched for and bought the necessary parts to fix it. I really don't know what those parts are because I'm not a bulldozer woman, but he got them and found someone to "work" on the bulldozer. Last Saturday, after several months of work, he brought his baby home.
And now, like a child's old Tonka toy, it sits in his garage. His precious car has been displaced from the garage and in it's place sits his precious bulldozer. It shows the effects of the years of exposure to the elements but Paul, the fixer-upper, is ready to paint it back to normal. He has already happily uprooted a number of hated wild rose bushes. He is gleeful with the thought of all the projects he has planned.
Welcome home little bulldozer. I'm so happy you are staying in the family.
Today I drove to Storrs (Huskie country....GO UCONN!!) to attend the baby shower for my niece Emily who is expecting her first bundle of joy in two months. I love baby showers and this was as good as it gets. It was a simple and joyous affair with Emily surrounded by her family and close friends. We sat with Emily and Ken in their cozy living room and ooohed and aaahed over the eensy weensy red converse sneakers and the red feathered boa for the new mother to adorn herself with. And the teeny weeny UCONN Husky booties.............they melted my heart. It's so much fun to imagine your baby wearing these tiny outfits. Emily and Ken probably couldn't wait until we left so that they could place these little things in the new nursery.
I love baby showers because they always remind me of how much I loved my own pregnancies, every second of them. It was always such a happy time for me and I enjoyed the whole life-giving process. I always felt the best I had ever felt in my whole entire life. I loved the feeling of the small wonder warmly nestled against me day after day. He/she was my constant companion. How could I fall so deeply in love with something that I had never met? As I would sit and feel the kicking and thumping from inside I felt a special relationship with that little one that no one else had. It was just the two of us talking to each other in a language that no one else could understand. I would have been a very happy baby-machine.........making babies for eternity!
I hope that Emily experiences nothing but happiness and joy these last two months. It goes so fast. Savor it all. There is a reason why pregnant women look so radiant.
We've been having some lovely warm weather. Quite balmy. The kind of days in November that make you think that maybe this year will be different and we won't have a cold and snowy winter. Yesterday we had no school because of the election. I spent most of the day transfering leaves into my vegetable garden. The job is done and my garden is at rest for the winter. Now I only have 4 more gardens to go. I hope the nice weather lasts long enough for me to finish the job.
Off to bed now to read Pillars of the Earth. It is so good, but so long. But I am thankful that it is long because it makes my reading pleasure go on and on. I am on page 400 and something out of almost 1,000 pages so I have lots of pleasure left.
I love corned beef and cabbage. Some poeple think of it as an Irish food....something to be eaten on St. Patrick's Day. I always thought of it as New England food. Corned beef cooked with cabbage, potatoes and carrots was always known as New England Boiled Dinner in my world. Not very much Irish about that.
I used to cook it every year on Halloween for my family. Partnered with homemade applesauce it was the perfect meal for a crisp autumn night. It made the house smell good. It is one of my "comfort foods".
For years I would always browse through the bins of corned beef wrapped in their cryovac packaging and ponder over "flat cut" or "point cut". I was never really sure what the difference was but always ended up with the flat cut, mainly because I liked the way it looked and because it was more expensive. I come from the "you get what you pay for" philosophy, especially when it comes to meat.
When I bought my corned beef this year the store only had a point cut so I grabbed it and took it home, figuring that there can't be that much difference. Oh, was I wrong, so wrong. Now I know what the difference is. After simmering my meat for 3 hours I took it out of the pot and proceeded to cut it in luscious thin slices to lay on the serving platter. Ick. Ick. Ugh. The meat was glistening with an oil slick. There was more fat than meat. I tried to poke and paw at it to pick the fat out. I was left with lots of fat and a few mangled pieces of meat. As we nibbled at our fat-infused meat I vowed NEVER to buy a point cut again. It was very tasty but quite slick with fat. By the time you cut the fat away there is very little meat left.
Stay away from that point cut.
I'm pulling out all the stops to try to get it to snow. I was almost successful this morning. We had a little snow but it quickly changed to sleet. The temperature stayed at 32 almost all day so any moisture that fell from above coated everything with a thin layer of ice. I had planned to drive to Rocky Hill to visit my mother but the ice changed my plans for me.
