So All My Northern Friends Can Laugh at Me
Spent this weekend camped out in the den with the wood stove.
Since the weather was expected to drop below freezing, and we were actually getting rain on Friday and Saturday, I proposed we haul out the air matresses and crank up the wood stove, fully expecting the power to go off at some point. Eternal pessimist, me.
I remember the first ice storm in Athens after we moved from the trailer park into the house, and the immature pine trees bending with the weight of ice to create a perfect arch over our driveway. And eating cold cereal in the dark. And my dad cursing because he tried to light a fire in the fireplace but forgot to open the flue.
No such luck this time. There was barely any water on the trees to freeze by the time Saturday evening and the first freeze watch came around. This is good news, really, no cracking trees falling on houses or cars or fences. No fires due to improper use of propane or space heaters.
Maybe I should get over it, but the idea of not having the tv to watch, entertaining ourselves with *board games and card games and talking to each other, living without all the things electricity brings (for a couple of days, anyway), really appeals to me.
We camped anyway. Roasted marshmallows on a straightened coat hanger. Snuggled on the air matress in front of the crackling fire. Slept late.
On sort of another track: We also started LBG on the PG movies we've been keeping her from up to this point. The first three Harry Potter movies, the Wizard of Oz, Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder version!), the Goonies, Dark Crystal, and Jumanji. I think that's all. Since we basically read or scratch her back until she falls asleep, no problems at bedtime from watching these, yet. She's also not prone to having bad dreams often, so we'll see.
*I forgot to mention one of the things we did over the holidays was get hubby's brother addicted to the board game Clue. And this weekend we played the Jumanji board game. And then LBG tried to create a game with all the pieces in our 7-games-in-one box - the chess pieces, the chinese checkers board and pegs, the checkers, the mancala seeds, and some toothpicks...the rules, the steps to take, the exceptions for use of chess pieces with toothpicks (she recreated the look of the knight Ron used in the oversized wizard's chess match by sitting a black peg upon a black knight with a toothpick for javelin - clever girl, that!!!).