BR-R-R-R

That seems to have been what everyone was saying for the past few days.
Monday morning it was -10' on our deck.
Daytime highs went all the way up to 15'.
Finally yesterday we had a heat wave of sorts . . . the temp climbed to 32'.
Who would have thought the freezing mark was warm.

The bitter cold reminded me of days gone by. At home, as I grew up, I remember the steam radiator in our bathroom. If you put your bath towel on it before you jumped in the tub it was toasty when it was time to dry off.
Then my dad decided to remodel the bathroom and covered the radiator with a fancy grating surrounded by wood. Alas, no more warm towels.

My husband had it a bit rougher. His parents home didn't have central heating. The only heat was a coal stove in the kitchen. Some heat made it to the second floor if the stairway door was opened. However, my husband's bedroom was on the third floor, also known as the attic. No heat up there.
He would put a brick in the oven of the coal stove to heat. Then he wrapped it in a cloth and put it under his covers.
His blanket was what they called a feather tick. Essentially it was a quilt, but the batting part was comprised of goose down and feathers. Once you got under it, the warmth from the brick and your body heat made a cozy nest.
He had a very smart cat that crawled under the feather tick and slept like a baby.

As much as I complain about the cold it is much more comfortable than the first year we were married.
Our first home also was heated with a cold stove.
I didn't have an electric or gas cook stove either. I baked (burned) Christmas cookies in that thing.
Thankfully, the second year of our marriage we put in central heat, albeit a coal furnace which required feeding it coal and emptying ashes several times a day. We thought we were living in luxury. However, I do remember the chimney we had to have constructed cost $87.00. That was our paycheck for the week. The man didn't work on credit either. Needless to say we ate a lot of soup the next week.

Then we bought an electric cook top and wall oven. My dad built a cabinet for it. Wow, now I really was able to cook without burning everything.

When I look back I realize how the trials of life have made me grateful for the small things in life.

So never fear, winter is only a season, it too will pass and the re-birth of spring will come soon . . . I hope.