Mom Hates Winter!
Sunday, January 17, 2009

It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything, so thought I’d take a moment out of this lovely winter season to share what’s been going on in the “heartland of America”,” God’s country”, “the breadbasket of the world”. Actually, I feel more like calling it the “bowels of hell” except hell would never be this cold! This is the time of year when I wonder “what the heck am I doing”? Driving in bad weather has never been my forte and I am getting a real workout this year. The first snow fell in early November and we have never had a really warm spell since then, so the snow has been piling up with every system that comes along. Add in a couple of days of freezing rain and the ever present wind and you have my definition of misery.

One day, I left home at 6:30 AM to find rain gently falling on my windshield. I have never really understood how it can be so cold outside and yet the clouds drop rain rather than snow, but anyway, that’s what was happening…so, of course by the time I got to Willow Lake and got the mail sorted and headed back west 2 hours later, the rain had turned to a very slick, glossy layer of ice on the roads. I crept along at a snail’s pace, managing to stay on the road, and then came to my first stop. I eased to an even slower pace and gently, oh so gently, applied a modicum of pressure to the brakes, but slid right by my stop. I got backed up and carefully got the car parked in this person’s driveway and made my way across the highway towards the mailbox, my arms full of mail. The highway tends to slope and when I reached to center of the road I began to skid towards the ditch. I saved myself from a roll into the snow by grabbing onto the mailbox, then put the mail in and turned to head back to my car. The trouble was, it was so slick that I couldn’t even get a bit of traction. I was stranded! Nobody was nearby to help out and I had no way to get back across the highway. As a last resort, I got down on my hands and knees and used what fingernails I had to dig into the ice and crawled across the asphalt. Now, I wouldn’t recommend this in the big city, but out in the middle of nowhere, with no cars in sight, it worked…I was finally able to stand upright and got back into my car. To make a long story short, the Postal Service didn’t think the ice was reason enough to delay delivery so I was forced to drive the entire route, 165 miles. I survived and since then have driven many days this winter on icy, drifted roads. We had a major blizzard this Monday and Tuesday, with record setting low temps (-47 in nearby Aberdeen, the coldest spot in the entire nation that day) so when the weatherman gave a forecast of dry skies and warm temps, I was thrilled! I was so looking forward to a beautiful, spring-like weekend…what they forgot to mention was the ever present wind which gusted up to 40 MPH all night last night and into today. The roads were worse than ever! But, each day I survive is another day closer to spring. I am trying not to complain as it doesn’t do any good…one thing you will NEVER hear me complain about is the heat. I hope it gets up into the high 90’s all summer, I won’t even care if my AC quits on me. I LOVE HEAT!!

Though it may sound that way, delivering mail isn’t the only thing I’ve done this winter.  I have been continuing my decorating frenzy whenever and wherever the opportunity arises.  Earlier this fall, I accidentally bought a wall mounted fountain on ebay.  I say accidentally because I had found someone selling the exact fountain I had been looking for.  It was listed at a price I considered to be too high, so I just continued to look at it and dream.  Then one day, I happened to notice that he had added a “make an offer” option to his listing.  I nonchalantly threw in a bid that I didn’t think he’d ever accept and forgot all about it.  The next day, there, in my ebay summary, was an invoice for this fountain.  He had accepted my offer and now I was stuck buying it!  Oh well…I consider that to be fate.  My next addition was an electric fireplace, also wall mounted.  I had a vision in my mind of how this was all going to come together in the basement.  I wanted an electric fireplace to keep young children from burning themselves and also because we didn’t have a chimney or propane.  I got Dick involved, though I don’t think he understood what I was trying to achieve, but he’s a good sport and did as he was told. I had him build a bump-out on one wall and the fountain and fireplace were mounted on this, then I bought some white glass mosaic tiles (also from ebay) and tiled it from top to bottom…then I put Dick to work once again, this time building me a mantle. Aside from shooting a nail through his finger, it all came together as planned. We still have to build a bar and add a bit of seating along one wall, but it’s all coming together. I even built a headboard all by myself. I asked Dick to show me how to work his saw and cut, upholstered and assembled said headboard. WARNING TO ALL MEN…if you don’t like doing all these home improvement projects, block your wife from watching HGTV! I have tons of ideas and will undoubtedly never be completely “done”.

As I am finishing up writing this, I can look out and see something strange…it’s a big yellow thing up in the sky and it seems to be radiating rays of some sort of light. I think I heard of this phenomenon once, seemingly eons ago…I think someone referred to it as the “sun”…hmmmmmm….It’s been so long since I’ve seen such a thing, I’ve nearly forgotten what it was. Could it be? Maybe there IS hope…maybe Mother Nature has had her fun with me and will decide to be nice for awhile. If not, I won’t despair. I’ll just come up with some more decorating for Dick to help me with in the nice, warm house!