Catching up...

The cold is keeping me out of the basement these days. So instead of quilting, I'm working my way through my library of Dick Francis mysteries. So far this month, I've read twelve of them. I love sitting in my favorite corner of the living room, in a big overstuffed chair right by the wood stove. It's toasty and warm there, and I can look outside at the snowy orchard, and be glad I don't need to be anywhere else.

The first few years we were in the farmhouse, before we put in a wood stove, I dreaded winter. The house was always cold, and the only way to be warm was to crawl into bed. We had a waterbed in those days, and it was always warm.

Once the wood stove went in, the opposite happened. I packed away my sweaters in favor of short sleeve t-shirts, because the stove heated the house so well!

But there were those winters when the house won: ice storms would pull down trees and power lines, the power would go out for days, and we couldn't keep the house warm. Those days, I'd pull the love seat in front of the wood stove, and spend the day there (always competing for space with a couple of cats).