January Thaw is OVER

I had a lovely weekend in Door County at The Clearing with nine woman writing friends.  It was warmish when I arrived on Friday afternoon which meant I was comfy in my fleece, thermal undershirt, jeggings, and boots.  That wardrobe was good for Saturday too, I just changed out the fleece for a hoodie.  Until nightfall.  Then it started to snow and blow and the temperature went into a slide for the deep freeze.  I kept a fire blazing in the Lodge on Saturday and Sunday, only going out to get more wood.  (down the double flight of stone steps to the woodshed, up the same steps with the bag full of stovewood--three, four, five times--JBates fetched wood a few times too)





I volunteered to have my one page scene critiqued first at Saturday morning's roundtable and got plenty of great comments and ideas on fleshing it out so after the rest of the morning readers and lunch, I plonked myself down next to the fireplace with my knitting and worked on a Sudoku square (no-thinking-required garter knitting) while contemplating the feedback I had gotten.  If I turned my head just a bit I could see four, no, five writers working at their notebooks or laptops, no one spoke all afternoon, we just worked on our projects and I kept us all warm.







AR and AW planned the menus.  We ate well--soups, oatmeal, pancakes, eggs, lentil & quinoa salad, lots of cheeses & crackers, my Italian Semolina bread, fruit fresh & dried, cookies, candy, chips, and nuts.  There was no way we'd starve.  Everyone helped set, serve, and clean up so no one got stuck with the scullery work all weekend.








My room was the loft in the Professors Quarters and has the best view of the bay.  I was hoping for clear skies and stars or even the Northern Lights but the clouds were too thick each night.  Sunday dawned partly cloudy (so it was sunny at times) but bitter, bitter cold.  The dramatic weather shift brought me a mild case of vertigo (naturally my pills were at home) but I managed to get up slowly enough and move around slowly enough that by breakfast the whirlies were gone and only a mild queasiness was left.  A couple mugs of lemon & ginger herbal tea took care of that.  (ginger's an old wives remedy for tummy upsets)  The drive home was uneventful and Durwood was glad to see me.


Today the temp has so far reached a zenith of seven degrees.  Yes, 7 has been the high.  Needless to say, we're sticking close to home.  I'm very glad I don't have to work today.

January 11--Russ Schleipman, Waiting.  Connor stood at the window all afternoon.  Mama was coming.  Grandma said she was.  Some day, she said, and Connor knew that today was someday.  They thought he was too little to remember Mama but he wasn't.  He remembered her soft voice and the way her hand smoothed his hair when they hugged.  He would know his Mama anywhere.  Grandma tried to get him to come away from the window but he wouldn't, not even for macaroni and cheese from the blue box.  They didn't have the blue box kind often because it cost too much.  He left the window, got his bowl of mac & cheese and went back to the window to watch.  "She won't come today, sweetie, not today," Grandma told him.  He just shook his head and kept eating and watching.

Time to put another log on the... oh, I forgot, I'm home now and we don't have a fireplace.  Drat.  At least my flannel shirt still smells of woodsmoke.  Maybe I won't launder it just yet.
Stay warm, people, huddle up.

--Barbara