|
Last Friday night we had an ice storm. I woke up to a yard full of sparkly trees~beautiful! In years past, we’ve had enough snow and ice that we’ve had to worry about branches breaking. Not so this time…only about a 1/4 inch of ice covered everything. Not bad enough to do any damage, but definitely bad enough for my husband and me to be stuck at home. We have a steep driveway, with the temperature holding steady at 25*, we weren’t going anywhere.
What to do?
This is too funny, but we ended up polishing silver. For hours! When we were in California, going through my mother’s things, I found quite a few silver trays. Neither my brother or sister wanted them, so I shipped them home. They arrived about a week ago~and their condition was pretty bad. After I unpacked them, they’d been sitting on our dining room table, practically begging to be cleaned. I kept putting it off.
Around noon, my husband Tom decided it would be a great project for us, so out went the gloves, polish, and old towels. We got to work. I had to smile~turns out Tom had never polished silver before. I’ve polished plenty, so I had to give him a tutorial. Turns out it was a good project for us. It took forever-not only had my mom not cleaned the pieces in years, she’d put them away dirty. We talked, we scrubbed, we talked some more, and admired how much better everything looked. But before long, shiny trays decorated the dining room table and we had a kitchen full of dirty rags and towels.
Don’t you just love projects where you can see results in just a few hours? I wish everything was like that!
After cleaning that up, we dug around the kitchen. I’d planned to go to the store on Saturday morning, and we’d planned to go out to dinner on Saturday night. Since we were iced in, Tom and I decided to make the best dinner we could-using what was on hand. I found frozen corn~it became corn pudding. Two forgotten frozen steaks, some canned mushrooms and an old onion became an impromptu Steak Diane of sorts. Three bananas that had seen better days became dessert-banana bread!
None of it was fantastic, but we had a good time. The best part? We were still dressed in old sweats~no fancy dinner clothes for us! We ended the evening watching an old movie.
Saturday’s ice storm ended up being a very good thing for us. A day together doing nothing special.
Today, it’s a balmy 52 degrees! My husband’s flying out for the week in a few hours, and the weather report says the temperature the rest of the week will be in the 40′s. I’ll be able to run errands and eat out as often as I want. But I think part of me is going to wish for another excuse to stay home soon.
And since it’s only January…I have a feeling we’ll get more snow and ice very soon.
Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you have a good week! Please come back on Tuesday~it’s time for another contest!
Shelley
4 Comments
| 
Jane Rinelli 
Hi Shelley
It sounds like you got a lot more ice than we did but we did have a coating. There was eough to make the trees really sparkle. I stood inside the entry and took some pictures. I hope they turn out.
My son in law had to work Saturday. They took it slow and didn’t have any trouble on the highway. But in the parking lot where he works my daugter said he was sliding while standing still, not even walking.
She sent me a text telling me it was a very good idea for me to stay inside so I would’t fall again or have a wreck. I had no desire to go out. Sure don’t want any more broken bones.
Of oourse the ice has all melted today. But it was interesting yesterday when I looked outside and all the icescicles hanging from the cars were dripping.
This weather reminded me of a couple of ice storms we had years ago. The first one my daughter was about 3 1/2 yrs old and had spent the night at her grandmother’s. I was going to get her and knew the roads were bad but didn’t realize how bad until I slid on the ice and found myself straddle a ditch and headed back the way I had come from. Some kind men with a rope came along and puled me out. I was going to ask my mother in law to keep my daughter anothr night but she had fallen and was in tears with pain so I just couldn’t ask her to continue watching a young child. I put her in the car and made it home with no problem and got my brother who lived in the same town to get her as I had to work that night.
The other ice storm I remember the ice was several inches thick on the steps and one of my neighbors and I went out with our hammers and chisseled and pounded it away and we never did get it all removed, we just gave up and let it slowly melt.
I bet you are really proud of those silver trays. It is so very nice when we have something special of our loved ones to treasure and pass on to our own children. And I’m sure you and yur husband felt a real sence of accomplishment when they were all shiny again.
Have a good week!
Jeanette