Tag Archives: Winter

His and Her To-Do Lists

Should I bother with a spring to-do list?

Image by Michéle from Pixabay.

This past winter, I could have scraped old wallpaper in three rooms. Instead, I read books. Enriching my mind inspires me so much more. Hubby’s enriched his mind too, finishing a thousand-page book on American history.

We’ve enriched our minds so much we’ve lost them — when recalling winter to-do lists. But a little repression never hurt anyone.

Besides, it’s spring. Why waste time indoors when we can stay outdoors?

Between snowstorms and tornadoes, I mean.

The only problem: our enriched minds cannot agree on priorities.

Items on his spring to-do list:

Clean the camper versus clean the garage? On Hubby’s list, the camper wins every time.
  • Conducting intense research on camping gear.
  • Buying lots of it.
  • Arguing with umpires and Cubs podcasts while cleaning our camper.
  • Arguing with mice that established winter quarters in the camper.
  • Tilling and planting the garden he knows deer will eat.
Image by Teodor Buhl from Pixabay.
  • Negotiating with dandelion and violet armies determined to conquer our yard.
  • Coaxing the mower into eating grass, despite its lack of appetite.
Image by forstephany from Pixabay.

My list:

  • Conducting intense research on spring shoes.
  • Buying lots of them.
  • Arguing with The Weather Channel.
  • Arguing with ants demanding the deed to our house.
  • Buying enough plants to create a second Eden.
  • Planting maybe four I know the deer will eat.
  • Applying fertilizers only weeds like.
We should move spring walks on Taylor University’s campus to the top of our lists.

Do Hubby and I share any common items on our to-do lists? A few:

  • Taking hand-in-hand walks, spotting new blossoms on Taylor University’s campus.
  • Pretending we’re students again.
  • Glorying in growing old like two aging maples sporting rings of experience, yet plenty of new buds.

Maybe we should put these — and, of course, enriching our minds — at the top of our spring to-do lists.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: What’s on your list?

OMG, It’s Monday! Prayer: Extreme Hot Chocolate!

Image by DC Williams from Pixabay

O Lord, splurging on this one steaming cup of hot chocolate, I never realized one Aztec king, Montezuma III, drank 50 — spiked with chili peppers — daily. OMG, even this chocaholic realizes a person can want too much of a good thing! 

Image by brian261 from Pixabay.

Image by noname_13 from Pixabay.

OMG, It’s Monday! Prayer: Fido’s Survey??

Jesus, today, one more survey popped up on my screen, asking my dog’s opinion of winter. You know I don’t have a dog. But if I did, perhaps he’d agree there are too many surveys in this world.

Image by Claudia from Pixabay.

Instead, shouldn’t humans, canines and all creation ask the bigger and better question:

OMG, what do You think? 

Image by sspieh3 from Pixabay.

Thankfulness after Thanksgiving

Have you already decorated your Christmas tree(s)?

Not me. Pumpkins, fall leaves and acorns still adorn my fireplace mantels and front door.

This decorating delay doesn’t indicate inefficiency on my part — perish the thought! It does reflect autumn’s short season. Thanksgiving items are placed on clearance before kids trick-or-treat.

Given that many hate winter, why do we forget fall so fast? Why not linger in Thanksgiving Land?

It was wild and wonderful, wasn’t it?

Even if I had to shovel out spare rooms and wash sheets.

Even if wrestling the defiant turkey into the oven resembled a Friday Night SmackDown sans tights and sparkles.

Even if appliances didn’t feel blessed. Our disposal rebelled Thanksgiving morning. Worse, our oven adopted a relativistic philosophy, insisting if its controls read “350,” the actual 500-degree temperature was irrelevant.

Even if, having stocked up on dark meat because we ran out last year, I was asked if our turkey was a mutant. Ditto for yeast rolls that resembled trolls.

Even if drains and conversations occasionally clogged.

And I can’t pretend I have six months to Christmas shop. …

Still, with four generations feasting and sharing gratitude to God, our Thanksgiving was a blessed celebration.

Admittedly, the grandchildren’s sugar energy levels could have endangered not only our house, but the entire city block. Thankfully, we all defused at a large community room I’d rented.

No one sent the Monopoly game airborne when he landed on Boardwalk with hotels.

Everyone ate mutant turkey and rolls.

Not only was there enough pie for all 17 diners, plenty remained for Grandma and Grandpa’s post-host-survival celebration.

Despite that, I still can zip my jeans! — and ignore nasty online pop-ups advertising tent-sized attire for New Year’s Eve.

Bottom line: Our family arrived safely, rejoiced, loved, and gave thanks together, then returned home, grateful to again sleep in their own beds.

Can such a rich celebration be considered a mere practice run?

We can correct whatever went wrong at Thanksgiving to improve Christmas gatherings. Hosts can repair the carbonizing oven and replace air mattresses that flattened overnight. Hubby watched a YouTube video that helped him fix the disposal. I might even practice making rolls that look like … rolls.

Image by Richard Duijnstee from Pixabay.

Soon autumn decorations in our home will give way to poinsettias, evergreens and jingle bells. A Christmas tree will grace our living room window.

But thanksgiving won’t be packed away until next November.

I pray it saturates my Christmas season … and New Year’s … and Easter 2024 … and …

Image by Deborah Hudson from Pixabay.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: What are your reasons for thanksgiving, even after Thanksgiving?

OMG, It’s Monday! Prayer: C’mon, Smile, Grinch!

O Lord, on these chilly mornings, I do appreciate my snuggly, nice leather footwear. Sometimes, though, I miss the glare of the Mean Kitty slippers I bought at the Dollar Store. OMG, You’re right. If I really need to look a grouch in the eye, I can always find a mirror.  

First Bike Ride of Spring

Image by Engin Akyurt from Pixabay.

Our early tandem rides always challenge my husband and me. We huff and puff and yell at each other to keep pedaling — and that’s just to leave the driveway.

Our winter weights slow us. Dogs that normally would pursue us might not bother: I’d get more challenge out of chasing a parked car.

Image by Herbert Aust from Pixabay.

The bikes are in good shape, though, as Hubby’s serviced them. Fired up his cyclocomputer that records mileage, speed, and number of bugs swallowed.

Cyclists face risks. The above-mentioned dogs might reconsider and supplement their diets with ankles. Some drivers consider bikes figments of their imagination. Occasionally, a crazed farmer attempts to flatten us with his tractor. Why? Maybe his girlfriend, Daisy, dumped him, and he has hated bicycles built for two ever since.

Twenty years of tandem riding, and we’re still married.

Still, Hubby and I take to the road.

With him in captain position (front seat) and me as stoker, we pedal away. Hubby, who once participated in 100-mile rides, supplies most of the power. He also steers, changes gears and brakes. He does maintenance and records our data.

Me? I make hand signals. Correctly, most of the time. Impressed? Hey, I fill water bottles too.

As we pedal along country roads, landscape changes become evident. A new house has sprouted. Somebody blacktopped their gravel driveway. One homeowner has planted peach-colored geraniums instead of his usual red ones.

Image by James DeMers from Pixabay.
Sometimes a little encouragement from friends keeps us going.

“Great to ride again,” I yell to Hubby.

He nods, mostly to keep bug-swallowing statistics low.

After several miles, though, the bicycle seats become a pain in the butt. A month must pass before our muscles adjust — or total numbness sets in.

Plus, sunshine fooled us. We ignored the wind’s gleeful gusts. At the beginning, Hubby said we might set new speed records for a first effort. With the west wind behind us, we might eat lunch in Pittsburgh.

Then we turned.

With the crosswind, our bike almost flew to Pittsburgh.

Still, the last gasping miles couldn’t detract from a river’s flowing green loveliness as we crossed the bridge. From intoxicating fragrances of early lilacs. From bunches of redbuds along the road as if God had tossed bouquets to us.

This road near my house goes by a different name, but I call it Redbud Row.

Why should He do that? It’s not like we created all this beauty.

But we’ll take it, giving thanks on this first bike ride of spring.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: What’s your favorite spring outdoor activity?

OMG, It’s Monday! Prayer: March Fool!

O Lord, my friends in California suffer from power outages, shoveling never-before snowdrifts.

My writing friend, Janet McHenry, can still smile, though sunny California isn’t so sunny!

Meanwhile, we in Indiana experience April-like thunderstorms and warm temperatures, fooling naive lilacs, daffodils and irises. OMG, perhaps Your weather is trying tell us we’re not in charge?

Image by oimheidi from Pixabay.

OMG, It’s Monday! Prayer: A Good Breakfast?

Oh, Lord, on a chilly February morning, I really like a good breakfast. Sizzling bacon. Fluffy pancakes. Eggs, over easy, and a mixing-bowl-sized cup of coffee with double cream.

I know dietary experts would disagree. But, OMG, must every day begin with Fiber One?

Classic Post: Booting Up

This post first appeared on January 3, 2018.

“Don’t go outdoors without your boots!”

These winter words echo across decades.

Actually, this child liked clumping boots. Despite Mom’s belief I would catch 19 diseases, their podiatric force field protected me when stomping ice-covered gutters.

Unfortunately for my parents, their children’s feet grew hourly. While my sister acceded to wearing my hand-me-downs, I drew the line at my brother’s galoshes. However, recycled boots weren’t always an option because we had honed losing winter wear to a fine art.

The positive side: Lack of sufficient winter garb kept us inside warm classrooms at recess. While friends shivered outdoors, I read favorite books.

Some stories featured boots. In Little Women, Jo March’s boots helped her play swashbuckling heroes and villains in homegrown dramas. In Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Farmer Boy, a traveling cobbler designed Almanzo Wilder’s first manly pair. Puss in Boots never would have brought his master fame, fortune and a princess if he hadn’t strutted about in that all-powerful footwear.

Still, most boots seemed mundane until go-go boots invaded the fifth grade fashion scene. My ignorant mother refused to buy me white boots amid the muddy slop season.

I whined. I pined. I promised I wouldn’t lose them, not even one.

She wouldn’t budge. So, I languished without the go-go boots every girl owned except me — and Becky Andrews, who wore thigh-high black boots like Nancy Sinatra’s when she sang “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’.”

Ten years later, I wore a similar pair that stretched my height well past six feet.

But snow time with my toddlers required mommy boots. My little ones readily wore garage sale Strawberry Shortcake and Ninja Turtles boots, even with PJs. They, too, waded in yucky gutters, despite my warnings.

Years later, they cornered me in a boot discourse similar to my go-go debate with Mom decades before. My children wanted me to spend a gazillion dollars on short-topped “boots” designed to frostbite toes.

When I refused, they left a row of sensible boots to an undisturbed existence in the closet — until I discovered my son’s worked well when I shoveled sidewalks.

I couldn’t wear the tall, black leather boots (my size!) I’d found on sale for five bucks.

I still wear them. I just leave them home when it rains. Or sleets. Or snows. Or. …

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Fess up. Do you wear your boots during yucky weather?

Classic Post: Brown vs. White Winter

This post first appeared on January 24, 2018.

Today, we’re experiencing a brown winter.

Typing those words makes me quiver with fear. Do I dare mention the weather to neighbors, coworkers or friendly convenience store clerks? With a few unguarded words, I may jinx the entire Midwest!

Despite brown winter’s dreariness, some consider it a gift, especially after enduring Snowmageddon. Anyone who mentioned “global warming” then was sentenced to shoveling the town’s driveways with a teaspoon.

No one battling the notorious Midwestern blizzard of ’78 had ever heard that term. If a foolhardy soul had suggested such to brides whose winter weddings were postponed indefinitely, they might have strangled him with tulle bows and buried him in uneaten wedding cake.

Others who survived that months-long whiteout not only stopped driving, they gave up finding their vehicles until spring.

Brown winter, by comparison, seems good.

  • Midwestern weddings should happen on schedule this weekend.
  • Cars start. They move!
  • Even if buckets of rain fall, we don’t have to shovel them.
  • Lower heating bills and fewer frozen pipes give cause to celebrate.
  • Mothers rejoice. Their offspring won’t need the 25 pounds of clothing required on snowy days. My son rated snowsuits along with vaccinations and boogeymen. Every outing resulted in a mother/son smackdown, the loudest always occurring at either the library or church.
  • A thaw dramatically reduces the likelihood of mistaken identity. Government statistics state that due to warmer temperatures, 77 percent fewer parents bring home the wrong kid from school.

To be sure, skiers and resort owners long for the white stuff. Ice skating rink owners anxiously await frigid temperatures.

No town wants its snow and ice festival to morph into a Sleet and Slop Spectacular. Nor do cities that have busted budgets, buying snowplows and stockpiling mountains of salt, look kindly on brown winters.

Worse, snowbirds cannot bear photos of friends back home visiting mailboxes in their shirtsleeves.

Yes, brown winters remain unpopular with some.

Me? I’m a coat-hater from decades back. (My son’s snowsuit antipathy is no surprise.)

Still, I welcome whispery snowflake kisses on my hood as we walk to church. Thousands of priceless diamonds glittering in my sunny backyard. Wind-carved curves of snow defy human artistry. …

Uh-oh.

I should’ve kept my mouth shut.

The Weather Channel predicts snow’s soon return. Do these scientific drama kings and queens truly know their stuff?

Brown or white winter today?

Stay tuned for our latest paranoia.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Which do you prefer, a brown or white winter?