HUNKERED DOWN

It's warm in my house this morning in spite of the forty degree temperature drop.  The fire is roaring.  I've got it built up a lot more than usual as I'll be here all day.  I'm going to make candy, pack Christmas boxes and do Christmas Cards.  The blizzard we were promised, two to three feet of snow, hasn't panned out quite that much.  

Don't get me wrong, there's snow and plenty of it.  It hasn't stopped snowing yet so who knows what it will amount to but it isn't coming down heavy like yesterday.  Usually it doesn't get as cold as this until the storm has cleared out.  This doesn't bode well.  I'm going to get under my trailer and make sure all the heat tapes are working.  If it feels cold down there I'll put in a portable heater to keep my pipes from freezing up.  

By afternoon I'll have to restock my wood box but that's good exercise.  I'll do it after the dog and I have gone on a walk.  Right now outside is black and white and cold looking.  When it gets really cold during a snow storm it seems to suck the color right out of everything.  That's all right by me as the smell of bacon frying and the coffee pot brewing make up for that.  This time of year I seldom get to indulge ALL senses at the same time.  I have to pace myself and appreciate one or two things at a time.  

It's only seven in the morning and already I have so many reasons to feel grateful.  I may live in a tin box but I've made it into a warm tin box.  The food may not be expensive but it's there and enough to share with my friends tonight.  The display of Christmas lights and decorations is smaller than the days when children filled my home but it is still there and cheerful!  I live alone but I'm making gifts and filling boxes for the people I love best.  Our connection is still strong.  

I live in God's country, cold though it may be, and so far I'm able to do the daily work required to live in this part of Colorado.  I am a person who is basically kept alive on medicines and certainly kept moving by them.  I'm so lucky I live in a time when these things are available.   It allows me an independence I wouldn't have if I lived a hundred years ago.  

I am poor but few of the things I enjoy cost much money so that seldom bothers me in my daily life.  I have a library of music, movies, books and art that will probably last me the rest of my lifetime.  Boredom is never an issue in my life.  Every day presents it's own form of adventure whether it is hitching a ride to work or trying out a new recipe on innocent victims.  

I am grateful for my life and for the possibilities it offers for now and the future.  I guess that's as good a reason to enjoy hunkering down as any!  

Moon

Last night the moon was stunning.  It reflected off the snow piled around my yard like a neon light.   I took a walk around 2:00 because it was so enticing.  It was surprising to find that after I got out of town it was still bright enough to hike up the road and avoid the drifts.  The whole experience was like being in another dimension, some place like Earth but not quite the same.

Roland had refused to go with me perfering his warm bed to jaunting around in the cold.  He wasn't there to chase after the rabbits I saw or the deer standing in the meadow.  Maybe I wouldn't have seen them if he had come but it made me sad.  He's getting older.  I remember a time I couldn't have gotten out the front door without him.

I got up to the overlook between Georgetown and Empire.  I wish I'd taken a camera.  The moon and Christmas lights reflecting off Georgetown Lake was beautiful.  The lights on the houses showed like a rainbow surrouding them.  The sky was black and clear and full of stars.  I'll hope for another clear night tonight when the moon is exactly full and try to get a picture of that scene.  I'll use it for my Christmas cards.

Colder Than Hell

It's right at zero. That is not the coldest weather we're going to get this year but it's cold enough for me to whine about.  Last night while it snowed it was down right balmy but when the skies cleared, the cloud cover wasn't holding in warmth anymore and the temperature plummeted.

I think my winterizing has worked!  The draft that no one could find the source of appears to be shut down!  I don't know if that is because I lined the inside of my trailer skirting with Visqueen or because I swathed my screen door in plastic or any of the other strange things I did to warm this place up but the curtains are no longer swaying in the wind!  

It's hard to even think about going outside today but I've got to plan for a ride to work, load up wood and get my poor dog some exercise.  I'm putting on layers as I speak.  It takes twenty minutes to get ready for a twenty second jaunt out to the woodpile.  Winter's  here in all it's glory.

What Next?

I'm looking outside waiting for some light to show in the darkness of the early morning.  It isn't coming soon enough for me.  I've been up for hours and I'm not good with my unsettled feelings this morning.  Ever wake up and know something major was going to happen that day?  I have those premonitionary moments on occassion and this is one.  I never know if it's going to be bad or good, just that something is going to happen.

So here I am, on edge, drinking more coffee just in case I'm not nervous enough.  The way my luck has run lately, ie; the last thirty years, I'm not thinking it will be a pleasant surprise!  However, this is the first day of Christmas Market and I'm looking forward to it!  The smells, sights and sounds of the Mart are always the first thing to really pull me into enjoying the season.  I'll get pictures of the Santa Lucia singers, the hayride, all the crafts, booths, food and ringing bells of the historic event we put on are hard to resist.  

The sun is coming up now.  The grayness is retreating.  I gave myself a good mental shaking and I'm getting ready to face whatever is coming my way today.  Who knows?  This may be the day my life changes for the better?  Or at least for the calmer.  

Icy and Windy

It's 5 Deg. F outside and the wind is cooking.  It's gray, foggy and hard to believe the forecast calls for clearing and sun.  I'm sitting in a cold house wrapped in a blanket just too sleepy to build a fire this morning.  Coffee hasn't kicked in yet.  I was trying to keep it cut back but the last couple of mornings it has seemed unusually attractive.   Winter has scenic Empire in it's icy grip alright.  

I got a ride home from work last night after 7:00.  All the town Christmas lights were on and beautiful they looked.  However, the new LED lights seem to give off an icier appearance than the old fashioned lights.  Maybe that's because of the colors chosen but you'd think purple, green, pink and blue would be fairly festive.  Not so much!  

The Library decorated our trees outside with the oldfashioned lights and the new stage in the plazza with white and blue LED icycle lights.  They are positively chilling to look upon.  The older lights are just cheerier and more warming.  Well, they are when they work.  The town crew has spent the last week in a daily battle against the squirrels who feel personally threatened by the lights.  They chew the bulb portion right off and most mornings there are bulbs strewn on the ground of all three of the big evergreens.  Traps, snares, everything but poison has been tried to no avail.  You can see the squirrels waving their little fisted paws at the town crew most days throughout the holiday season here.  

Well it's time to unwrap from my quilts and get dressed for the day.  From one cocoon to another.  

BAD TIMES

So I'm going through some bad times right now.  Well, to be honest, pretty much constant since 1979!  My original personality was almost giddy in it's constant good nature.  It was something I had a reputation for as I kept smiling through things that were pretty terrible.

I have been called strong, gallant, fearless and spacey at various times but in the last three years I have lost much of my sense of humor and a ton of the store of happiness that seemed to never run out no matter what the situation.  My Father and I were discussing that the other day.  He told me no one can remained unchanged as they age unless they were either extremely fortunate or brain dead.  His theory is that every time you get screwed or go through the death of a loved one or have health issues, whatever, each thing takes some of that joy of life from a person.  

Maybe he's right.  Until a few years back I could be diverted back into happiness so easily I laughed out loud during the love of my life's funeral.  That may have been somewhat stress oriented but I could still so easily slip into the feelings of good times then.  The last year I didn't really decorate for the holidays much.  I love this time of year.  I crave the lights and music.  

I'm going to make an effort to divert myself back into happiness.  I'll probably end up in a mental institution as happy is not the way a person in my situation should be feeling.  Tomorrow the Christmas decorations go up in my house and I start cleaning.  Maybe the normal Holiday activities will brighten my mood!  I will make the effort to get to holiday gatherings.  I will allow myself enough heat in my home to get more than five feet away from the stove and start working on the Christmas baskets I'm sending to friends.  

Maybe I'll be able to get some joy back in my head!

Layers

It's that time of year here.  There is no throwing open the door and leaving.  No, there are layers to put on first.  You start on the underwear sock layer.  Forget the plain old underwear, you need something thermal!  So over the top of your regulars, there's a layer of long john type action going on.  Pants, socks, turtleneck, shirt, coat, vest, scarf, gloves, and hat make up many of the remaining layers.  

My day is spent taking off my clothes.  No, don't go there.  No one wants to see that.  I'm talking sweaters, shirts, jackets, etc.  At least four times during the course of my shift I'll have to reverse that to go for the mail, picking up book drops, or getting supplies.  The taking off and putting on of clothing is a process that goes through the entire day, every day until spring hits around July.

People here have a tendency to get pretty tired in the winter.  I think clothing has a lot to do with that, and shoveling snow, and  putting out salt on the walks, and breaking up ice, just the added exertions winter puts on us.  My house is freezing when I get up in the morning.  There is work to be done hauling wood and building fires before anything else.  By the time the coffee is on the fire has started warming a small area of space around it.  I often sit on my stove for the first twenty minutes the fire is going.  About the same time I have put on enough clothes to tolerate the chill air the coffee is done and when I'm back from fixing a cup the stove has warmed the whole room.  

I think I would like to move to a warmer climate but humans are such creatures of habit.  What new routines would fill in my winter morning ones?  What would replace the feeling you get when the fire is crackling, the coffee is ready and the morning is new?  Would I appreciate getting up so early to be able to write?  Would things be too easy to make them valuable to me?  Would the old layers of my life have to be ripped away and replaced by new ones?  Would I have to throw out my winter clothing collection?  

Life would probably be easier in many other places.  I'd probably grow new layers but I'm almost sixty and changes get harder as you get older.  I am looking through all the layers of my life and trying to decide if good friendships make up for the daily pain.  So far they have.  My layers are thin, old and threadbare but they are mine and I gather them to myself for warmth.