February: Blah, Humbug!
It’s bloody freezing again, the wind’s ripping, the snow’s back and I’m this close to being declared officially SAD.
I spent five minutes dressing for the weather, donning coat, scarf, hat, gloves and lacing up my winter hikers . . . all to venture across the road to pick up the mail! The one-minute journey was hardly worth the bother of dressing and undressing – and cleaning up all the snow and salt that I traipsed into the mudroom-in-progress. Which just ticked me off more. I’ve been trying to keep the mudroom clean as there’s still bare wood trim awaiting stain and tile grout to seal. The road crews around here use this lethal combination of sand and salt that spells certain death to just about everything it touches – I’m talking grass, shrubbery, flowers, cars, asphalt, sidewalks, several pairs of formerly nice-looking footwear and the bottoms of my pant legs. I’d be a damned fool to think my newly tiled floor could withstand it.
Someday, there will be heat going into the mudroom (once the ducts are run beneath the floor), and taking off boots will no longer feel akin to licking a flagpole in sub-zero temperatures. Can you sense my impatience?
Oil bill, flooring bill, junk mail . . . oh, and what’s this? The spring issue of Gardening Life, packaged with several mail order catalogs for plants and bulbs.
I may have just cracked a smile. Pass the Chap-Stick.