Sorry to be late again. I am still running terribly behind where I should be due to the holidays, I guess.
The reenactment event we did last week is usually a nice simple, although time consuming, event to do. It has been one of my favorites every year. It was an unusually cold week for around here. Normally the weather should be above freezing here in December, one night last week was 9 degrees Fahrenheit and on the final day of the event it snowed. While it is an 18th century house it does have a furnace in the basement and we also make a fire in the kitchen fireplace. This kitchen is unusual for the period as it is in the house - at least as it is set up to be interpreted by the restoration. Normally we are comfortable in the house, but this year it was cold in the house - so cold that husband (with his cold) actually asked to switch rooms with me during the last 2 nights as the room he was in was too cold for him. So he got to talk about our musicians/singers, the odd cabinet bed in the room, the kitchen, and Sinter Klaus (there is a display table related) while I got to talk about the owner’s office and the 2 bed chambers - he likes doing the back rooms as he can talk more about anything he wants to than in the kitchen where there are things to be covered in talking. We even brought plain knit gloves the last two nights to keep our hands warm in the house. Our unit is lucky - we are in the first house in the village so we have the shortest walk from the visitors’ center in the cold. One thing which surprised me was how many people came out in the terrible cold - and many brought very small children and babies.
So after “spending” 5 days in the 18th century, I was behind on everything. I have since read 9 newspapers, caught up on a week’s worth of email and mail, caught up on my online groups - one of which moved to a new setup and I had to join and setup my account all over again, plus doing all of same that has come in since.
We had been told that we were to have snow from early this morning (Thursday) through the day. Where we are was suppose to get about 4 inches. Husband now panics over bad weather. I had my embroidery chapter meeting yesterday so on Tuesday I told him that we should buy whatever he wants or feels we need to have for a snow day. We bought stuff. I told him that I would go to the meeting (which is actually in extended walking distance from our house) and would not stay for the class on stitches after the meeting part. I did make one stop after - I exchanged USB stick drives in our bank vault - I use same for offsite data storage, which is changed once a month. (When he went to work, I would send the drive to work with him and he would bring the old one home with him for reuse.) I then came home. We ended up going to Walmart, the adjacent supermarket and the Walmart supermarket here. (Our regular Walmarts have small food departments, but not the supermarket areas that they do in other places - the Walmart supermarket is smaller than the sections elsewhere and is only a supermarket and pharmacy.) When we came home we went into “horrible weather mode”. All of laptops and cell phones were plugged into charge (and have stayed same since) and he had bought two devices to recharge cell phones, so those were plugged in also so they would be fully charged. Normally I would move anything in the middle of the traffic patterns in rooms out of same - but the living room and dining room where this is mostly done were still neat from the holidays. This way if we did lose electricity it is easier to walk around in dim light and not walk into anything. (For us, we are still in the holidays.)
When we went to bed last night, the snow had gone up a bit in how much we would get, as it had shifted further west. (Those of you in the South or the Northeast part of the U.S. who were hit by this storm, you have my sympathy.) The weather reporters has also started talking about blizzard and nor’easter (think hurricane with snow in cold weather). But, he had not panicked and I was glad of that. When I went to sleep around 4:30 am, there were still no school closings showing up on the local news.
Well, it ended up that this area had over 10 inches of snow - in bitter cold weather. It finally stopped snowing around 4pm and based on the suggestion from the weather reporters, as well as husband’s need to do so, we went out to clear our driveway. Our neighbors on either side were also doing so (they are young with young children - we are old with no children). And shortly after the neighbor’s son from two doors over (in his 20s) came out with some friends to dig out their cars. Our driveway is semi circular. It goes from one edge of our property to the other so just figuring out where to put snow is hard. Husband used the lightweight snow blower we bought last year. I used a shovel and a brush - the latter to clear off our car. We were out there about 2 hours doing this. Husband had trouble with one of the cuts to the street (4 lane road so we get 2 driving lanes plus a parking lane’s worth of snow plowed over on same) and had me cutting it down with the shovel (breaking the snow loose so it would spread over more area and easier for him to throw) while he worked on the other cut. The neighbor on that side who has a larger snow blower, came and cleared it for us. (Thank you again Sal!!!). I cleared half the stair case to our front door so the mailman could get to the box (I have no idea if we got mail today - I was not going to look - we did get a newspaper, but I forgot to take it in and was not going back out for it) and also cleared the snow all the way across the top step so that the door would open in an emergency.
Finally exhausted we came back into the house. I could not feel my toes. Husband looked as if he would pass out. We lost a small piece off the snow blower - a knob - which we have lost before, found it, but are still missing the nut to it and hope to find it tomorrow when it is light out. (By 4 pm when we started it was dark out - and our garage light is on a motion detector, so when it went out one of us had to run to where it would go back on.) When he was coming to the end of the snow clearing he heard a noise in the blower which upset him - we later found out, he ran over the Christmas lights on one of the low bushes - good thing I told him to shut off the electricity to the lights last night. Schools are already closed for tomorrow. The weather is suppose to remain 15 degrees F or less until at least Monday, so there will be a lot of ice on the driveway.
I had told him to do a bit of the snow clearing, then in the house and rest a bit. But, being a man, it all had to be done at once, of course.
After dinner I went upstairs and did the paperwork I planned to do today and never got to. Moving some money around to pay bills, paying the bills, and a birthday card for my brother in law and one for the daughter of the neighbor who helped us out. Both birthdays are Monday and one bill is due out by then - not sure if we will get to the post office (and bank) in time for them to go out before Monday, but if they can, we are ready.
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
We had a quiet New Year’s Eve.
The way I look at it, every day is the start of a New Year. I don’t make resolutions - the last one I made I have kept ever since, it was not to make any more resolutions. I look for what I can do (or not do) and then do my best to follow up. Resolutions are usually to broad to be followed and then one feels bad for not doing so.
And if you make resolutions and don’t keep them - remember every day is the start of a new year and one can start fresh.
Happy New Year.
Well, storms do not always do what they are predicted to do, and we got 10 inches! We had spent
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