Snow Days

Snow always reminds me of winters growing up in New England. Being glued to the radio waiting to find out if school had been cancelled, hoping for a day of sledding and Mom's homemade hot chocolate. Building snow forts and ice skating on the pond down the road. Every now and then, a magical night when it just kept snowing and snowing, before cars made tracks on our dead-end street, before the plows woke up. Mom and Dad would pull my brother and me on our sleds for a walk down the road, followed by our black Labrador and occasionally even our cat. Snowy nights like this always felt a little like Christmas Eve, somehow special, little elves working their magic while you sleep and then you wake up to morning wonderland.

John introduced me to cross country skiing when we first met and I've been hooked ever since, although sadly there haven't been many consistently snowy winters in Columbus lately. Just this week we were supposed to get a storm that turned out to be a bunch of rain. It's been a pretty mild winter, and I'm so grateful for the snow we did get this month. John and I explored the canal path in Hebron which I'd seen from route 70 and always wondered about— it goes through a covered bridge!— and hit our close-to-home favorite trail at Glacier Ridge Metro Park.

Tracks on the trail

The Glacier Ridge woods

Covered foot bridge in Hebron

Snow day for Pippin

Totally on my bucket list though?— riding Pippin in the snow. It gave me a glimpse of what winter life might be like when we move to Vermont in a few years, and I loved it.

(Photos of me & Pip courtesy of Maddy Hayes)

My Covid Week

When I started writing this post it was snowing. I was waiting for this! I sat at my desk watching the flakes fall outside, the sky a solid grey. Birds were at the feeder on one side, squirrel tails hung down from the other. Wind was blowing what was left of crinkled leaves still clinging to tree branches. It finally felt like winter — yay!

On that same day, though, I came down with covid symptoms, and I’ve been home since. It knocked me out with a fever and nausea the first day and a smaller fever the next day, but after that it was just a stuffy head and aching eyeballs. John and I have been quarantining— I started and am just about to finish my very first knitting project that isn’t a scarf, and we’ve been binge-watching seasons of Blue Bloods.

When I was a kid, being the kind of sick that kept me home from school meant Mom putting a sheet, pillows, and my favorite afghan on the couch in the living room so I could watch tv all day. She’d bring tea and soup and saltines, and ginger ale in the tall blue plastic glass with a bendy straw. These were the days before cable and remote controls, and while most of my favorite shows — a collection of cartoons and reruns — were on the same network, Mom was kind enough to change the channel for me if I needed to switch things up. I was a lucky kid.

While it wasn’t necessarily fun being sick, there was something I always liked about it. You didn’t have to worry about homework or studying; your only assignment was to get better. As an adult I’m not sick that often, but when I am it kind of feels like a magic reset button. It’s time off that your body forces you to take, with all your to-do lists reduced to one essential: get well. What you choose to add back in after that is up to you. A fresh start!

10 Things That Made Me Happy in 2021

I’m starting to finally look through and organize the photos I took last year. While the process always seems daunting and a little tedious, I wind up reliving my entire year and realize how lucky I am; that despite whatever grief and difficulties may have occurred, my life is filled with joy. Gratitude lists are pretty popular lately and I keep one in my journal, but at the end of a year I like making one that I think of as my happiness list. In no particular order, here goes…

1. Above: After almost two years, I was finally able to spend a week with my friend Lynn in New York. We sat in her backyard garden, did a lot of writing, and made a pilgrimage to our favorite Innisfree Gardens. I missed her so much!

2. Below: John and I made several trips to Vermont to look at land. This is one of my favorite photos from our January visit, and although this wasn’t the property we eventually made an offer on, this enchanted forest became the benchmark for everything else we looked at. If a piece of property didn’t feel magical somehow, it got crossed off the list.

3. I was finally able to travel with John on some of his trips! Panama City, Savannah, Hartford, Greenville, Jacksonville. There he is in the yellow vest, doing the pre-flight walk-around and waving at me :-)

4. Glamping in our front courtyard on the new air mattress, complete with Persian carpet.
5. Zora! Her Momma was hit by a car, and when my friend asked if we’d take one of the kittens we wrestled with an apparently popular question: how many cats is too many? We decided that three is just fine.

6. Ohhh the CAPA Summer Movie Series came back! John surprised me with tickets to five movie nights. I love the Ohio Theatre with all its red velvet. And the organ mini-concerts made me think of fun liberty routines I could perform with Pippin!

7. Speaking of which, I made some new friends and became part of a whole new world that is liberty horsemanship. Pippin loves this as it honors his free spirit — you work without bridles or halters or ropes (yes your horse can run away from you) — and I love it because it honors mine. This photo was taken at the International Liberty Horse Association show in Kentucky in October. It was so inspiring! While I went as an observer to cheer on my friends, I know that Pippin and I will compete one day!

8. Being back in the art room at the Ohio State School for the Blind. While this dragon isn’t part of the project I’m working on with the kids, it makes me happy to see it every time I walk into the classroom.

9. Pippin. He has taught me SO much and we are having insane amounts of fun.
And I end with #10, Christmas with John and the girls. It might have been my favorite one yet.