by jphilo | Oct 28, 2014 | Top Ten Tuesday
10. It’s the closest thing to time travel most of us will ever get.
9. There’s more time to turn the lights down low for a romantic evening and not notice the need to dust the furniture.
8. When it’s dark by suppertime, jammies are perfectly acceptable dining attire.
7. Once everyone’s wearing jammies to the table, serving breakfast for supper is also perfectly acceptable.
6. So is going to bed early after meal clean up. Which is incredibly easy when cereal bowls and spoons are the only things that need washing.
5. School children who wear jammies to the table, eat breakfast for supper, and wake up early because they went to bed early the night before no longer have to wait for the bus in the dark on school days.
4. Writers and bloggers who wear jammies to the table, eat breakfast for supper, and wake up early because they went to bed early no longer have to take their morning walk in the dark either.
3. On evenings when people don’t hit the hay immediately after wearing jammies to the table and eating breakfast for supper, it’s too dark to do anything but binge watch the Modern Family Season 5 DVD, which you have on loan from the library for 1 short week after waiting months for your turn to check it out.
2. Fall back in the fall means an extra hour of sleep this weekend. Heavenly!
1. The end of Daylight Savings Time means only 4 short months until March 9 when it and spring make their glorious re-appearance.
What would you add to the list? Leave a comment!
by jphilo | Mar 6, 2014 | Three Thoughts for Thursday
- Can you imagine how long the mnemonic device will be to replace My Very Energetic Mother Just Served Noodles now that NASA names the 715 new planets it just discovered?
- The Man of Steel and his brother were the first Caucasian twins born in Alaska’s Matanuska Valley way back in 1956. Thanks to the Winter of 2014, we can pretend we’re back in the Valley this Saturday when we celebrate the anniversary of that momentous event
- Speaking of hard winters, my Minnesota sib sent the above chart about the top ten worst winters, temperature-wise. A day or two later, the winter of 2013-14 moved up a notch thanks to the Polar Vortex’s latest visit. My mom still talks about the Winter of 1935-36 . I still talk about the Winter of 1981-82, the very cold winter when I was pregnant with our first child. Now my kids can join the conversation thanks to the Winter of 2013-14. A new family tradition is born!
What winter stories does your family tell? Leave a comment.
by jphilo | Jan 27, 2014 | Reflections on the Past
Thanks to the cold, snowy weather this month, residents of the northern two thirds of the US are fighting the winter blues. From the sounds of things, the light at the end of the winter blues tunnel won’t be shining any too soon. So on to Plan B, which is a couple stories from the Harding County History Book erased my winter blues and inscribed a couple mental notes upon my brain for easy access when that blue feeling creeps up again.
Here’s an excerpt about the winter of 1897, the first year the Finnish immigrants Andrew and Alina Peterson lived in northwest Harding County.
Andrew dug into the hillside and made a one-room accommodation for Alina and the two small children, Blanche and Sulo. The first winter Alina lived there without Andrew as he went back to the Lead gold mine to work. Alina baked bread and traded it for meat with the passing cowboys who had a camp three or four miles away. One remembered story told of a time when a cow wandered away from the herd and suddenily fell through the sod roof and into the middle of the one room home. No one was hurt, though there was quite a mess to clean up as well as roof repairs.*
The second excerpt comes from the Elliot family, about a March snowstorm. The exact year isn’t given, but must have been before 1910 based on other dates mentioned elsewhere in the account.
The snow drifted clear over the door that night. Dad had to dig his way out with the coal shovel to get to the pump. The storm lasted three days and then a thaw came. The creeks were full of slush and another blizzard came, which lasted three more days. We ran out of coal, all but the slack (the tiny particles and dust left after the larger pieces are gone). Dad went to the shed and found some old beef bones, he put them in the big heating stove on top of the slack while it was burning. It didn’t smell too good, but kept us warm. He finally pulled a bobsled into the big kitchen and sawed it up for kindling.**
*Note to self: Stop feeling blue about how the lack of a mud room entrance in our NINE room house (not counting the basement) means mopping the tracked in melted snow and gravel off the kitchen floor. Store the complaining in a safe place and let it rip when a cow falls through the roof.
**Note to self: Instead of feeling blue about how high your heating bill is this winter, inhale deeply and enjoy the lack of burning bone odor in your house. Stand in the kitchen and enjoy the quiet created by the lack of a bobsled being chopped into kindling.
What helps you beat the winter blues? Leave a comment!
by jphilo | Jan 21, 2014 | Top Ten Tuesday
The winter of 2013–2104 has been a cold one so far. It came early, and from the looks of things, intends to stay late. So Down the Gravel Road is posting this top ten list as a public service announcement for the inhabitants of the frozen tundra. Keep in mind that the list is more metaphorical than practical, the contemplation of which should offer enough food for thought to get you through Ground Hog’s Day when Punxsutawney Phil tells the northern hemisphere how much longer this winter will last.
10. Car seat warmers. The Man of Steel and the Woman of Aluminum are far to steely (and cheap) to own a car with these. But the Woman of Aluminum is adept at finding out if the cars of acquaintances, with potential to become good friends, have them.
9. Mouse traps. Those of you who live in old farm houses where the frozen tundra meets the edge of town know why this item made the list.
8. Happy lights. One way to fight back against the lack of daylight hours in the winter.
7. Chocolate. This item is self-explanatory.
6. Hand lotion.
5. The ability to day dream. Specifically, the ability to day dream about warm places like Florida, Hawaii, and the southwestern United States. To watch an instructional video on how to gain this ability, go to your local movie theater’s showing of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.
4. TV and movie DVDs. Visit your local library’s selection for free or purchase a subscription to Netflix.
3. Friends and family. Those long winter nights go by faster when you have company over to supper and play games afterward.
2. A Bible. It promises that our present sufferings can’t compare with future glory. (Romans 8:18). While Paul is referring to future glory in the next life, the new life that bursts forth each spring is a type and shadow of what’s to come. The middle of winter, when all seems dead, is the perfect time to meditate upon the promise of the life to come.
1. Books, books, books. A good book is good company any time of year. But they are essential in winter. The best book I’ve read so far this winter is The Book Thief. You?
by jphilo | May 6, 2013 | Daily Life
The man of steel and I are no strangers to May snowstorms. They were more common than we liked during our years out west. One particularly vicious storm dumped 18 inches of snow on Harding County, South Dakota after Mother’s Day. But when we moved to central Iowa in 1985, we thought we’d left nasty May weather far, far behind.
And we had. At least until last week when the winter that will not end graced us with several inches of wet, heavy snow. During the storm that left the landscape looking more like early March than May, the man of steel and I said some things that made us look at one another and ask, “Did I just say that?”
Here are a few of the head-scratching comments heard around here:
- Hiram, it’s snowing really hard. You might want to leave for work a little early.
- Where’s the snow shovel?
- I wonder if school was called off.
- Have you ever seen a tulip shiver before?
- Maybe we should cover the plants on the porch.
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Now, it’s your turn. What did you say during last week’s snowstorm that made you scratch your head and ask, “Did I just say that?”
