family life, spiritual life

At home with winter

JOY journal
I have pretty boots, but these are the ones that get the job done. I will keep them until they disintegrate.

Come winter, a war-weary towel lines a spot in the dining room that lies close enough to the front door to be practical but keeps the snowy boots that gather there out of sight. It’s already in place. Winter came early this year, bringing more snow on the first day of December than it did all of last year.

We live at that kind of latitude. Far enough north that we are capable of real winter and even the occasional blizzard. But far enough south that we often skate through with nightly freezes, days in the low 50s and random snow squalls that look like something but never are.

It feels like it’s going to be a “north” winter.

We are ready. In addition to the boot towel, the house is decked out in all its cheery Christmas finery. Soup stock is at the ready. An afghan is draped over every sitting surface. Beds are piled high with flannel in ridiculous prints (think dancing cats) and layers of puffy coverlets. Candles are on the kitchen table and a portable heater has taken up residence beneath to keep our feet toasty during meals. The kitchen closet is bursting with coats and colorful hats, gloves, scarves and, as unlikely as it seems in 2020, mufflers.

It’s true. We are at home with winter — whether we truly like weeks of bleak light and cold air or not. I suspect it is good to go with the seasonal flow in this way. Particularly this winter, when going anywhere or anyway else is like typing with mittens on. Albeit colorful mittens that, if we were any farther north, might be drying on a mitten tree. (Look that handy invention up if you don’t recognize it. :))

Winter is a difficult season. COVID is a difficult season. But, God is able and so are we if we are operating in His grace and power. We might as well cozy up to both Him and winter while we ride these dark days to their end.

A note to frequent readers: We are an academic household. With schools effectively closed to in-person learning, our house is both filled with people and Zooming with constant internet activity. This is taxing our network (and sanity…) beyond its limit at times. For this reason, my posting and reading of posts will be erratic in coming weeks. Hope you are all well in body, mind and spirit and that I get to see you more regularly soon!

Published by JOY journal

A longtime journalist, Nora Edinger also blogs and writes books. Her Christian chick lit and faith-related non-fiction are available on Amazon and on this site. She lives in Appalachia with her family and a goodish puppy named Finn.

29 thoughts on “At home with winter”

  4. Keeping warm makes all the difference, doesn’t it? Lucky me – My husband spent the last lockdown building new shelves and installing a beautiful gas fireplace in the living room. A nice fire used to take 20 minutes to build, got ashes all over the carpet, and filled the room with smoke. Now with the push of a button I’ve got the same effect. (Don’t judge me – I’m retired.)

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    1. No judgment! We once forgot to open the flue on our fireplace and smoked ourselves right out of the house… We technically have a gas fireplace, but we shut the whole thing off when the kids were little and the button was too easy and never turned everything back on. Hmmm. Now, you’ve got me thinking!

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  5. “We might as well cozy up to both Him and winter while we ride these dark days to their end.” I love this thought Nora! Reading the warmth of your descriptions was like drinking a mug of hot chocolate after being driven in by the cold after a long run of sledding.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    1. Well, thank you! You would certainly know this given all the outdoors you and your puppies do! We haven’t hiked since early November here. Too many hunters in the woods, not that I mind as there are also way too many deer. Hoping for some good sledding weather over the holidays!!

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  7. Thank you for such a warm post, Nora 😊 . Stay safe, and as we say “Bon courage” for the inevitable 2020 home schooling. Do you at least have a dedicated computer to write your novels?

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  11. Simply a lovely post Nora. Thank you. You inspire me to continue building my cozy Christmas of comfort, candles, decorations, and cheer, as home we are and will be for the holidays. Have found this year to really being in the mood for every bit of Christmas from the baking to the window decorations. All my best to you. Stay safe.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s