Most of last week seems a bit blurry. I came down with a bad cold midweek. I don’t get sick very often, but when I do it’s usually bad. It’s been several years since I had a cold. I’m not a happy sufferer when I’m sick. I think my family agrees that the best thing is to leave me alone, but keep me supplied with tissues. So being sick, my recollections of the week feel somewhat out of whack. I managed to go to school every day – luckily Thursday was only a half day (I made it through with the help of Dayquil) and we were off on Friday. I couldn’t have survived full days of school with this cold. When I was home, I spent most of the time lying in bed watching Hercule Poirot on Netflix. I wasn’t fully conscious through a lot of it, so the episodes have all sort of bled together and I can’t recall the specifics of who was murdered and who did it.
It was very cold most of the week. One morning it was -22° and that was with no wind chill. It snowed a lot during the week too. The big storm that shut down the East Coast just brought us another four inches of snow. No problem. The icicles on the front of the house have passed the five foot mark and now hang as low as the downstairs windows.
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| Icicles. |
We celebrated my birthday on Tuesday. The Shilligs came over for dinner. We had lasagna and garlic bread for dinner. Julie brought a salad and baked me a banana cake (the traditional birthday cake of my childhood). It was delicious. I received some nice, very thoughtful gifts.
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| I look like I'm praying. |
Friday was Valentine’s Day. Last Sunday afternoon we made our traditional homemade Valentines cards while we watched Pride and Prejudice, also part of the tradition. There was a Valentines Chili Dinner at church on Friday. I wasn’t up to going, Hannah had to work, and Josiah didn’t want to go, so only Stacey went. She had a nice time.
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| Making Valentine's cards. |
I placed my seed and plant orders last week. Over the next weeks the orders will arrive bit by bit. The seeds and supplies will come right away. The bare root trees and plants will come later, at the end of March when things have begun to thaw. I ordered new apple, pear, and plum trees for my orchard extension, and blueberry bushes and strawberry plants. My onion starts are coming from Texas, my seed potatoes from Maine. It makes me happy to think of this year’s gardens looming just on the horizon. It makes me feel like winter is finally in retreat, though I know there’s still a lot of cold and snow ahead.
Sarah is back from her adventure in Mexico. We’re still waiting to hear all about it, but we did see lots of great photos she and her friends posted on facebook.
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| Sarah in Mexico. |
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| Mayan ruins. |
After taking it easy for three days and nursing this cold, I decided I felt good enough to go to church today. After all, I have a Sunday School class to teach and I hate to miss even one lesson. Everything went well, but I’m tired now and ready for a long nap. It’s snowing. That makes me want to nap even more. The weather forecast says we’ll have temperatures in the 40's by the end of the week. I can hardly wait.
