Posted tagged ‘warm day’
January 26, 2016
The weather is warm: everything is melting. At first I thought it was raining so I went to the back door to check. No rain, just the constant dripping of melting snow. No sun, only clouds. Yesterday the branches were covered. Today they are empty of snow.
I keep losing track of the day. Last week was so slow that on Tuesday I thought it was Thursday. This week is going a bit faster, but I have no idea why. Some weeks feel endless while other weeks are gone before I even realize it. My routine is pretty much the same every day so I think this spell I’m in must be boredom, ennui. I don’t seem to have much ambition though I did force myself to do the laundry. I guess I got tired of seeing the laundry bag in the hall, leaning against the cellar door. I think it had been there close to two weeks. Yesterday I also did a bit of dusting with my sweatshirt sleeve. Finally I watched a couple of programs on my DVR. One was the Doctor Who Christmas.
This snow storm was a cheat. It spoiled the weekend and clean up on Sunday meant school on Monday. When I was a kid, snow days were holidays. They were never added to the end of the year. I have no idea how many days we had to go to school back then, but because I was in a parochial school, I had more days off than the public school kids. We were off on Holy Days of Obligation, parish saint days and nuns’ visiting days. I have no idea why or where the nuns went visiting. I just hoped they had a good time.
Categories: Musings
Tags: branches empty of snow, drops of water, losing time, melting snow, no school, snow days, warm day
Comments: 4 Comments
December 21, 2015
Today is warmer, and if weren’t for the wind would be almost tropical at 50˚. By Christmas Eve it will be in the low 60’s. That’s deck weather. I hope Colorado will be just as nice.
Today my to-do list runs for pages so when I finish one, I cross it off with a flourish! I love forward movement and am getting really excited at the thought that tomorrow is the day! My carry-on and Gracie’s bag sit in the hall just waiting to be filled. They’re on the afternoon list.
I watch Christmas movies most nights. Hallmark is always good for happy endings. No matter what happens, the main character will find love or a family or both. Royalty appears in more than a couple. The prince or princess hides his/her true identity, falls in love with a commoner, reveals the royal lineage and overcomes parental disapproval. The wedding occurs at the end of the movie. All is well.
The old Christmas movies I can watch over and over again. A Christmas Carol is a seasonal must. Alastair Sim is my favorite Scrooge. I love him when his hair is messy, he’s wearing his white linen nightgown and he’s giggling from pure joy. Patrick Stewart is a stern, almost frightening Scrooge so his transformation is amazing. Miracle on 34th Street is another favorite, but I’m not really all that choosy. I watch them all.
Christmas encompasses so much, but it all revolves around Christmas Eve and Christmas day. When you’re little, the day never seems to come. When you’re older, there never seems to be enough time to get everything done, but it happens. It all comes together. The presents are bought and wrapped, the tree trimmed, the cards sent and the cookies baked and decorated. We’re ready for Christmas.
Christmas is so many different traditions and customs, but the one we share is spending Christmas with family, whether a family by blood or one by friendship. Tomorrow I will be with my family, my sister her husband, their three kids, their spouses and children. I am so very excited.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Christmas day, Christmas movies, feel good movie, Hallmark, Miracle on 34th Street, presents are bought and wrapped, the tree trimmed, the cards sent and the cookies baked and decorated, Scrooge, the tree trimmed, the cards sent and the cookies baked and decorated, to do list, warm day
Comments: 16 Comments
December 15, 2015
The sun is shining, the sky is blue and the day is quite warm. I’m thinking winter has forgotten to come. Not that I’m complaining, but there is a certain expectation here in New England about Christmas and winter and maybe even snow.
My mother was always the architect of Christmas. She bought the gifts, did all the baking, trimmed the tree and decorated the house. My father did his best. He’d help my mother wrap, do the outside lights and put the tree in the stand. He used to do tree lights, but one year they were so tangled he refused to hang them. He just threw them on the floor and sat down. No one wanted to remind him he had put the lights away the year before. The lights then became my responsibility. I was quite fussy about where they were hung, and I tried to vary the colors of the bulbs so same colors wouldn’t be together. My father also helped by being the official taster of Christmas goodies. He did love his sweets. He knew he could count on having sugar cookies, her peanut butter balls, a pie or two, and some different cookies, whatever struck my mother’s fancy from a magazine or a cookbook. I remember her Auntie Mary’s, a chocolate cookie with a cream in the middle.
I began baking and bringing the goodies to my mother’s. I made fudge which was grainy and was my father’s favorite. I made my grandmother’s date nut bread and one year I made orange cookies. My mother liked them so much she hid several so they’d be some left just for her. My English toffee always disappeared quickly.
One year my sister and her family from Colorado came for Christmas. She bought goodies including whoopie pies, one of our all time favorites. What was amazing and extraordinary was she brought spritz cookies because my mother always made them when we kids. She’d add coloring to the dough and we’d have white, red and green cookies. I also made spritz cookies for the same reason. We were all going to be together for Christmas for the first time in many years and spritz cookies was a connector to our childhood Christmases. My mother remembered those years, and she too made spritz cookies. The three of us through those cookies celebrated the shared memories of Christmases past.
Categories: Musings
Tags: architect of Christmas, baking, blue sky, Christmas goodies, decorating, family Christmas, goodies, no snow, Shopping, spritz cookies, tree lights, warm day, wrapping
Comments: 17 Comments
December 13, 2015
Today is a grey day but still warmer than it should be. Last night my house was ablaze with Christmas lights. My neighbor from across the street called to say she loves the lights and can’t stop looking at them from her window. Most of the house has colored lights, but a giant white star sits atop the fence to the backyard and strands of white flow from the star. I love that star.
When I was a kid, we had turkey for Christmas dinner. With it we had creamed onions, mashed potatoes, stuffing and another vegetable or two. Over time my mother changed the menu. We’d have some sort of a roast, fresh vegetables and always those mashed potatoes. We’d eat dinner in the dining room instead of the kitchen. First came the festive table cloth which changed from year to year. My mother and I would then set the table with her Christmas dishes. The centerpiece was made of boxwood and decorated with red balls and ribbons. The middle of the table groaned under the weight of all the dishes. We’d pass each dish and fill our plates. We’d compliment my mother on how delicious everything tasted. The mashed potatoes and gravy never had lumps. The vegetables were just right. It was every time a perfect feast.
I had been my mother’s sous chef for dinner and after dinner I was her cleaner upper. My mother would stay in the kitchen, dry the dishes and keep me company. We’d put on Christmas music. My mother loved the Carpenters Christmas, Frank Sinatra’s and Andy Williams. It was a treasured time for me. My mother and I chatted the whole time. Everyone else was in the living room, but they’d appear every now and then for some more desserts. The table was filled with choices: whoopie pies, cookies or candies, all made by my mother and me.
My mother made Christmas a joy. We all honor her by doing the same.
Categories: Musings
Tags: centerpiece, Christmas dinner, Christmas dishes, Christmas lights, colored lights, dreary day, red balls and ribbon, warm day, white lights
Comments: 13 Comments
December 12, 2015
The Christmas lights are going up right now. Skip is hauling the boughs out of the cellar and putting them on the front fence. I will no longer have the darkest house in the neighborhood.
We’re still in that warm spell. Today’s high here on the cape is supposed to be 59˚. Last winter was crazy because of all the snow. This winter has its own brand of craziness with the warmth of December.
I bought some ribbon candy the other day, the thin kind, the sort which carries a whole bunch of memories. When I was a kid, we didn’t have all the choices of candy decked out for the holidays that we have now. Boxes of chocolates were around, but they were more for gifts than for our consumption. We had lots of hard candy. Some of it came in a box similar to the animal crackers box including the string. The boxes I remember best were blue and had the Three Kings and the star on each side. I liked the peppermint, the cinnamon and the green ones which tasted of spearmint. My mother also bought hard candy for the house. I remember the candy would stick together in the bag, but she’d put them out anyway. We’d pick through to get our favorites. I loved spearmint the best.
The thin ribbon candy stuck to our back teeth so we used to click our teeth together to hear the sound of the candy, a sort of thud. I liked the green ones best and then the red.
We used to get lollipops in our stockings. They were the see through types made in a mold and were mostly Christmas trees. It took ages and ages of licking to finish them so sometimes we’d get to the point where we couldn’t lick one more time. We were done. They’d get tossed.
I buy my sister thin ribbon candy every year. It is a connection to all of our Christmases. It is a tradition.
Categories: Musings
Tags: boxes of hard candy, Christmas candy, Christmas lights, cinnamon, decorating, hard candies, lollipops, peppermint, ribbon candy, spearming, warm day
Comments: 24 Comments
December 10, 2015
Fern, Gracie and I slept in this morning. It was 10:30 before we dragged ourselves out of bed. After two papers and two cups of coffee I am awake. Notice I didn’t say alert. Fern and Gracie are having their morning naps. They are exhausted. I have no idea why.
I have a to do list today. The wrapping might just get done so I can send the packages to Colorado. I need animal food so Agway is on the list, and I need a bit of people food as my larder is empty. I really want to get outside as it is warm and the sun is beginning to appear. It isn’t winter despite the date. Today is already 54˚.
When I was a kid, Santa never wrapped presents. He left them under the tree in a pile for each of us. My pile was aways the first one on the left. The only wrapped presents under the tree to be opened on Christmas Eve were the pajamas and slippers. The tags were signed from mom and dad.
When I was an adult, my mother wrapped every gift and signed the cards From Santa. Those gifts were left around the tree on Christmas Eve just as they had been when I was kid. My spot was next to the chair and the overflow was in front of the fireplace screen, first pile on the left. Wrapped gifts made for excitement and surprise as if we were kids again. I remember picking up a package, feeling around and shaking it so I could guess what it was.
I don’t remember having breakfast on Christmas morning when I was a kid. I suspect we were too involved with our gifts so it was catch as catch can. Our adult Christmas breakfasts were wonderful. We all sipped mimosas as we opened gifts. The breakfast, a casserole made the evening before as per the directions, was cooking in the oven so we could give all our attention to the pile of gifts.
I wrap everything, even the small gifts. It takes a lot of time, but I figure I’m keeping the spirit and the excitement alive.
Categories: Musings
Tags: animal food, breakfast casserole, Christmas morning, empty larder, From Santa, mimosas, sunshine, to do list, warm day, wrapped presents under the tree, wrapping
Comments: 10 Comments
December 6, 2015
It is 51˚. The sun is winter bright. The privacy of summer is gone. The trees are so bare I can see the neighbors’ houses and they mine. A breeze chills rather than cools the air. Old Man Winter may not be here quite yet, but there are signs that he’s waiting impatiently in the wings.
When I was a kid, I always wanted a white Christmas because of Santa. I never saw him pictured flying over houses with green lawns. He always traveled in the snow. Reindeer too belonged in the snow. They lived way up north in the Arctic Circle, and any picture I had ever seen of the Arctic Circle always had snow. I remember Eskimos wearing jackets and thick mittens covered with fur when they harnessed their dogs to their sleds. Christmas needed snow.
We had a nativity set made of chalkware. It had all the necessary figures: kings, shepherds, animals including a donkey and a couple of sheep, Mary, Joseph and the Baby. The stable was wooden and had pieces of hay around as if real animals lived there. Over the years the chalkware chipped. Shepherds were missing noses and just about every other piece had a chip or two. It never mattered. Out came that nativity set every year. I remember the Baby had outstretched arms and was sleeping on what appeared to be swaddling clothes though I didn’t know what swaddling meant until I was a little older. My sister has that set now.
I always think each new Christmas stays connected to all the other Christmases of our past. My mother made decorated sugar cookies and so do we. I even use some of the cookie cutters she had. If I make a pie, it will be lemon meringue, not usually a Christmas pie, but it was one we all loved so my mother made it. I put old ornaments on the tree and one of those old big ones way up high because that’s where my mother would hang it for safety’s sake.
Christmas is wrapped up in family. Traditions are passed down from one generation to another and along the way new traditions are added. They connect us across the years. In every Christmas I see my mother. That is one of the joys of the season.
Categories: Musings
Tags: animals, bare trees, chalkware, chipped pieces, hay, kings, nativity set, Old Man Winter, Santa and lawns, shepherds, warm day, White Christmas
Comments: 13 Comments
November 3, 2015
Today is absolutely beautiful. The breeze is slight, the sun is strong and the temperature is in the 60’s. I think Gracie and I might be taking a ride later. I have a few errands to do then off we’ll go with no destination in mind, a ride just for the fun of it.
Every now and then we’d skip part of the way to school. There was a sense of exhilaration, of joy, when we’d skip. First we’d hop on one foot then we’d hop on the other and we’d keep hopping until we were so tired we had to stop. Skipping wasn’t as fast as running but it was faster than walking and was more fun. Learning to skip looked easy but it wasn’t. My feet seemed to get tangled in the hopping, and I’d lose the rhythm. Finally after many starts and stops I got my feet to work and I was finally a skipper.
Jumping rope was another one of those get your rhythm and your feet working together. We used to jump rope at recess. It was a single rope as none of us knew about double Dutch. We had rhymes we said while jumping. They helped us keep the cadence, the rhythm. I was okay at the slow jumping but once we hit the fast jumping, pepper, I was doomed. I always ended up being the rope swinger.
Probably around the sixth grade we stopped jump roping. We were on the second floor of the school and felt older. We thought jump roping was for kids. During recess we’d just stand around in small groups of friends and talk. Boys started to be a conversational item. We were still too young for dating but we were poring the foundation (sorry-that was the only analogy I could come up with). We’d decide who among the boys in our class was the cutest. We never talked about the nicest or the smartest. It was always the cutest.
Categories: Musings
Tags: beautiful day, jumping rope, recess, Shopping, skipping, sunny, taking a ride, talking abut boys, warm day
Comments: 12 Comments
October 12, 2015
Today is the best sort of a fall day. The sun is shining, it’s warm and the clear blue sky goes on forever. The leaves have started changing, and with the help of the wind, some have already fallen. My front lawn has touches of red lying on the grass blown from the trees along the driveway. Clumps of pine needles with chewed ends are strewn on the grass and the driveway. The spawns chew the clumps off the branches, drink the sap then toss the leftovers. I don’t ever remember seeing as many clumps.
Columbus Day meant the day off from school, but it was always the 12th, never a convenient Monday. Today is just happenstance. Schools, banks, town and federal offices including the post office are all closed.
I don’t know how to celebrate Columbus Day. All the other holidays are easy, each has a token, a symbol. Some even have traditional foods. I suppose we could eat Italian food in honor of Columbus having been a citizen of Genoa or considering he never really made it to the New World, we could eat Caribbean food, the closest he got. We could wear one of those silly hats he’s always pictured wearing. As for decorations, miniature ships with crosses on their sails could be on the Columbus Day table. That’s all I’ve got.
Now we come to the controversy as to whether or not we should celebrate Columbus, by most accounts a slaver guilty of genocide. He wiped out entire populations of indigenous people. He didn’t even find America, his one claim to fame. Protests against Chris are held every Columbus Day. In some places the day has been renamed Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Only 23 states still have the day as a holiday from work.
I used to like a day off in October. In truth, I didn’t care the reason.
I agree that Chris doesn’t deserve a whole day in his name. He really didn’t do anything worth recognition. Quite the opposite is true so I think it’s time to stop honoring him. We need to rethink the day.
Categories: Musings
Tags: blue sky, Caribbean food, columbus day, falling leaves, genocide, gorgeous day, Indigenous Peoples' Day., Italian food, miniature ships, red leaves, slavery, warm day
Comments: 12 Comments
August 9, 2015
Today is chilly and damp, the sort of day when being inside the house is like wrapping a blanket around you. The house is dark, but I haven’t turned on any lights. I don’t mind the darkness. When I was a kid, this was a favorite kind of day. I’d lie in bed with the lamp on, the one which hung on the headboard, and read. I was never bothered as the TV drew all the attention, and anybody coming upstairs was heading to the bathroom and pretty much ignored me. I have nothing I need to do today so I won’t even get dressed. I will read away the day.
I was part of an easily amused generation when I was growing up. We didn’t have electronics or computers or cell phones. Board games were the best fun. We’d sit on the rug in the living room, set up the game and play all afternoon. The only movement in the game came when I’d move a man around the board. We’d play cards, even war which is about the dullest of all card games. Slap Jack was fun because you got to whack a faster player’s hand. We played Crazy Eights and Steal the Old Man’s Pack. I always thought that was a neat name for a card game and wondered why it was an old man, maybe because we already had Old Maid.
I remember sitting at the kitchen table coloring. The crayons were all different sizes. Some were full size but many were stubs worn down by use. I had to guess the colors of those as the paper had been torn off as the crayon was shortened. The older I got the better I got at coloring. I learned how to shade the colors, to apply the crayons lightly. Every Christmas I always got a new coloring book and new crayons. The books were mostly Christmas scenes and red, green and brown got a lot of use.
We did get bored sometimes stuck in the house as we were on some rainy days. I remember my mother going crazy when we moaned and groaned about nothing to do. She was expected to keep us entertained. I guess we always thought of her as the house cruise director. She was never honored by the title.
Categories: Musings
Tags: board games, chilly and damp, coloring books, crayons, Crazy Eights and Steal the Old Man's Pack, darkness, easily amused generation, favorite day, light on the headboard, reading all day, slap Jack, warm day
Comments: 8 Comments
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