Adjoaskinner’s Weblog

12/22/08

It was FREEZING.

My sister shut the door to my room and none of the heat in the house was allowed in.

I put my hands under the faucet hoping for warm water and the pipes froze so all that I was given was icey cold.

After thanking the Lord for wool socks and layering, I went on a search for any extra blankets in the house and situated myself on the sofa.

My mother who had fallen asleep in the front of the fireplace mid conversation 2am last night woke up a couple of hours later and visited the frozen tundra of a room that we were staying in…..unable to find me she hunted the house for her youngest daughter, finding me wrapped in swaddling clothes on the living room couch.

The next morning we swapped stories of the event while mom’s king snake crept slowly from person to person sucking the heat out of their bodies and eventually pooping all over my mother.

My nephew entered the scene shortly after the snake poop incident with his body head to toe in snow after wading through the 4 foot drifts that graced our backyard.

The day finished up with one final act at 2am….

My childhood friend and I stood in the backyard…staring at the snow.

WHAT WOODPILE she said.

We both scratched our heads wondering what my mom had been smoking when she said there was a woodpile in the backyard.

I knew where she had stored the wood years prior, but the backyard showed no wood to the naked eye.

I jumped around in someone else’s tracks in the hopes that it would lead us to the wood pile…we saw a blue tarp….I thought… “Its gotta be here, where else would it be?”

So I grabbed the shovel and started shoveling out the woodpile.

It emerged several feet of snow later and as we pulled back the layers of blue tarp to find the hidden treasure, we rejoiced at the victory with sore backs and ruff hands.

We took a few handfuls of wood up to the house and put them next to the fireplace. Along the route from the woodpile to the door I thought to myself; “I have nothing to complain about”

“I live a charmed life and I have become lazy and comfortable”

There is something about manual labor that reminds a person how lucky they are.

But there is something about manual labor done in 10 degrees that makes a person look at their life and see not only who there true friends are…but what real work looks & feels like.