Thursday, January 31, 2008

You Know It's Cold When...

...the salt you threw on the sheet of ice by the door just sits there...mockingly...on top of the ice...not melting the ice...for two days.

...the first inhale through your nose instantly freezes up the nose hairs and feels like something is pinching your nose. I think if my nose hairs could talk they would be screaming "Holy crap...make a run for the brain! It's warm in there!"

...the dog is VERY quick about doing his business outdoors. No dilly-dallying around looking for the perfect spot.

...gloves don't cut it - must have wooly mittens.

...the scarf and stocking cap stay on once inside the house. (Especially when your house was built in 1896.)

...the hairdryer is shoved into a little hole in the floor to thaw out the water lines to the bathroom sink.

...the house makes strange, cracking noises in the late night. Then you see the crack...in the bathroom wall...in the middle of a piece of sheetrock. (Especially when your house was built in 1896.)

...you haven't seen a bird fly by all day. How those little bird legs don't freeze up and shatter like glass is beyond me.

...you can't stop thinking about the winter you went to Florida from frigid temps and mittens in the morning to an evening sitting in the pool looking at the full moon through the palm trees.

January is done...February's a short month...end of March will bring relief. C'mon spring!

Monday, January 28, 2008

Practically Hibernating

The hubbie's parents gave us an electric blanket for Christmas this year. We finally got it assembled and put on the bed Saturday night. It has individual controllers and we turned it on and snuggled in for a cozy sleep. Typical Sunday, we slept in. Later I mentioned to hubbie that I noticed the blanket had shut off on it's own sometime during the night. He said he noticed too and had read something about an automatic shut-off on the packaging. I went upstairs to read the book and found out "after 10 hours, the power to the electric blanket will turn off." Oops, guess we're not supposed to sleep more than 10 hours. Come on folks, it's the dead of winter. We're practically hibernating up here in the great white north! Well, at least on the weekends anyway. Next weekend we'll have to set the alarm clock for 10 hours after we go to bed, wake up, turn the alarm clock off, turn the blanket back on and go back to sleep. Boy, being lazy is sure hard work!

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Bad Passenger

I am a total paranoid freakazoid when riding as a passenger in a vehicle. After a 45 mile ride home tonight with a friend, I will try to be the driver on our excursions from now on. She had me grabbing the dashboard more than once while gabbing away and crossing the line on to the shoulder of the road. I am probably a bit over the top with my paranoia but it's something I can't seem to control. Just ask the hubbie. He swears he could drive with his eyes closed and just wait for my gasps of air before opening his eyes to make a correction. It's like an automatic reaction, like a knee jerking at the tap of a doctors mallet.

I can pinpoint at what point this disorder began. It wasn't the first car accident. In that one I came over a blind hill on a freeway only to discover a line up of stopped cars. I was able to slam on the brakes and stop in time but, unfortunately, the guy behind me wasn't able to stop before hitting my rear end. Nope, that wasn't the turning point. It was the next one. I was driving along one summer day with the windows open and a small plastic bag started moving around so I reached to grab it. In that split second of moving my attention from the road, I kept driving straight but the road was curving. I hit the gravel on the shoulder of the road, reacted by over-correcting the turn and landed head-on into a guard rail on the other side of the road. I wasn't hurt but the car was buggered up pretty good. That was the turning point. A great big dose of realization of my own mortality and how things can go bad in a blink of an eye, or the grab of a flying bag. It turned on an unhealthy switch of fear in me. It was reinforced a few years later when trying to get home on the icy freeway, and did a 360 degree spin in the middle of the road with my young nephew in the car beside me. Of course he thought it was cool but I was mortified until he was safely home.

I wish I could ride with someone without watching the road more than they do. Most times I feel I might as well be driving as much as I'm working at it as a passenger. I wish I could ride with my hubbie without barking at him when he does something unsafe. Of course my unsafe and his unsafe are two different stories. You'd think I could trust his driving prowess after he's done the 100-mile-a-day commute for the past 20-something years with only one icy road slide into the ditch. I'm sure he wishes the same thing.

Saturday, January 26, 2008

His Mothers Hands

A friend from my home town lost his mother this past week. She was 84, healthy and taking no medications which is amazing for this day and age. Her passing was, in my book, ideal. Peaceful, at home, no illness, quick and after living a long, fulfilled, love-filled life.

In talking with my friend, he mentioned his mothers hands. She was embarrassed of her hands. They were misshaped, worn and wrinkled with years of work as a farmers wife and a country mother. Hands like hers should be admired and revered as badges of an honorable, well-lived life.

I found this poem that was befitting...

My Mothers Hands author unknown

I held her hands in mine last night

they looked so thin and worn
but they held
mine just as tightly
as the day that I was born.

Those gentle and expressive hands
etched by work and care
have folded over
my bedside
many times in humble prayer.

They've washed for me, they've fed me
they've helped me be a man.
There's something
of our Lord, Himself
in every mother's hands.