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| Sunrise last Monday. |
January is a slow month. After all the excitement of Christmas and New Years, January always seems to put on the brakes. I blame the cold. It’s really a matter of science. When things get colder, their molecules and atoms slow down. That’s why molasses is slow in January. At absolute zero (-459.67° F), molasses, and everything else, stops altogether. I think I can feel my molecules getting slower and slower during these gelid January days. And then comes February. In February I approach absolute zero.
Today marks an anniversary in the story of our family. On January 19, 2000, we came to live in Gold. I just read my journal entry of our move across the country. It was a long and nerve-racking trip. We left Frazier Park, California, on Thursday the 13th in the afternoon. Stacey and I took turns driving our old Suburban and a rented moving van (that never went over 50 miles per hour) loaded with all we possessed and towing my Toyota. Our two cats, Tina and Midnight, made the trip in the Toyota (where the scent of their litter box remained until the day three months later when I totaled it on black ice on my way to work in Coudersport). Our dog, Agnes, rode in the moving van (I remember when we stopped to eat at a restaurant in Texas and we heard someone honking their horn non-stop in the parking lot and then realized it was the dog standing on the steering wheel). The first day we made it to Needles, California. The second day we got as far as Grants, New Mexico. The third day we stopped at Elk City, Oklahoma. By then it was Saturday and were running a day behind schedule so we decided to drive on to John and Mindy’s house in Troy, Missouri, the next day. Stacey got pulled over at Hanks Point, Missouri, because she was driving the moving van down the middle of the road (it was a narrow road and she was tired). We arrived at the Shillig's house just before midnight on Sunday night. We stayed there on Monday to rest and then on Tuesday set out again. John and Mindy and their family traveled the last leg of the journey with us in their camper. We drove all that day and made it across Ohio. We spent the night at a rest stop on the Ohio Turnpike, all of us crammed into the camper. On Wednesday we drove all day just ahead of a winter storm and arrived at Gold at 10:30 p.m. When we left Los Angeles it was 70°. When we arrived in Gold it was -20°. It was snowing and it kept on snowing every day for a month after that. At least that’s how it seemed to me. Coming across the country like that was an experience I vowed I would never repeat. I plan on living here the rest of my life.
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| When we first moved here. That's Miriam and Hannah with Josiah on the sled and Agnes, our dog. |
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| How we looked in 2000. |
So we’ve lived here in this old house for 14 years now. I have happy memories of coming here as a child to visit my Aunts. This house has always seemed a happy place to me. I always imagined the walls soaking up all the happiness over the many years my Aunts lived here. Now, after 14 years of living in it, we’ve added new layers of happiness. I hope this house will be a happy place for our family for generations to come.
One of the gifts I received for Christmas (thanks Kurt and Julie) is a Film-to-Digital Converter. It’s a wonderful little gadget. I can insert slides, negatives, or even super-8 movie film and make digital photos from them. I have hundreds of slides. My parents put all of their slides into three big binders several years ago and gave all of them to me. Since Christmas, I’ve been going through those slides, converting them into photos, and posting them on facebook. I love looking at the old photos. They start in 1954 when my parents were married. So far I’ve made albums up to 1980. I still have one more binder to go. Then I get to dig out the old super-8 movies and take still photos from them.
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| One of the old slides I converted. A family gathering in 1973. |
Most of our snow melted last week. We had weather warm enough to allow for rain. But by the weekend the snow was back and everything that thawed was frozen solid again. Our driveway is like an ice skating rink with a bit of gravel embedded in it. Both Hannah and I fell on the ice last week. And it looks like the cold weather has settled in for a while. There are lots of single digit temperatures in the forecast for the coming week. Some of them above zero, some below. But I can finally tell that the days really are getting longer and that helps keep the winter blues at bay. I love to spend what time I can sitting by the wood stove with Hercule Poirot. I’m really enjoying these novels. I never realized how engrossing Agatha Christie’s who-done-its are.
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| How things looked at the beginning of the week. |
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| How things look now. |
There’s no school tomorrow because it’s MLK day. I’m planning to spend part of the day working on seed orders. Maybe I’ll so some baking, too. I’ve been hankering for oatmeal raisin cookies. Just the thought of them makes me feel warmer. I always triple the amount of raisins. Cookies, hot cocoa, seed catalogs, the wood stove, and Poirot – sounds like a good day to me.
