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Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Puzzling through the Storm


We’re holed up. Hurricane Sandy’s aftermath brought rain, wind and now snow to our part of West Virginia. Certainly not the devastation others have experienced from this strong storm, and I am not complaining about the storm’s impact in our little corner. We will get a few inches of snow before the storm passes, but nothing like the two and three feet some friends have reported.
 
The chill, damp weather is keeping us inside for the most part. Even the cats and dogs wanted in last night; I think the dogs are still remembering the derecho this summer and high winds make them nervous. So all six of us settled in last night as the winds howled. The fireplace was cozy all day, and I stayed busy with a jigsaw puzzle.


I love puzzles—crosswords, cryptographs, word scrambles and jigsaws especially. It has been years since I worked a jigsaw puzzle, and I forgot something: I am obsessed when I start one. I will work hours at a time literally, just to get a few pieces in place. How can someone like me, who can hardly sit still to watch a movie, get so involved in something as simple as a puzzle? It’s a puzzlement to me, but there it is.


I am taking a vacation of sorts these past few days, not working on anything at all. I’ve read a little, slept late, watched a couple movies with Larry (I’m sad because we watched the last of the early, early Hitchcock movies—silent films no less!), drank coffee and pretty much that’s all. I haven’t even cooked. Larry has been cooking simple meals and he’s enjoying it. I just want to rest, recover and regroup from the hectic schedule of the past month.

 
I was supposed to be telling stories today, but with schools closed that performance is a no-go and I don’t really mind, although I am sorry for the children who will be disappointed that they did not get to have their Halloween party. Perhaps it will be rescheduled, as trick-or-treat has been in this county. This year the weather played the tricks.

Today I am slowly getting back into the routine. I’ve done laundry and dishes, did some cleaning and have a pile of things ready to be priced for my antique mall booths. The booths have been neglected this month, I’m afraid, since storytelling ruled most days. So I need to restock at both places. We visited them this weekend to see how much I needed to bring, and fortunately/unfortunately both places still look pretty full. The Marietta booth continues to outsell my first booth almost two-to-one, so I will very likely downsize the first booth this month to reduce the rent. The expansion I did in July has not paid off as well as I had hoped and has cut into the profits from this booth significantly. Live and learn.
 
Larry has been outside a lot this morning, trying to knock snow off of the laden mulberry tree. It still has its leaves and two big branches have broken with the weight of this heavy wet snow. He's also filled the bird feeders and knocked snow off the satellite dish twice so the internet will work. Gotta love that man.
I hope all of you are safe, warm, well and out of the weather. I’ll be back to regular posts now. New booth pics will be posted later this week and I’ll also post some photos of recent finds and a few from our travels, although for some reason I didn’t feel inspired to take many photos on these trips—I think my mind was just too busy with other things.

 


Copyright 2012 Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

13 comments:

  1. So glad you weathered the storm well and even got a bonus of a few inches of snow! Thank you so much for the DVD's you sent. Wonderful stories!!

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  2. Nice to hear you are relaxing after a busy month. I call this type of time my regroup time. Your trees laden with snow are beautiful. -- barbara

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  3. I'm glad the storm is just bad enough to keep you home for a good rest. I have always loved being snowed in for that very reason.

    I'm the same way as you with puzzles. When I was growing up (in a house with 5 girls) we always got a new puzzle for Christmas & we worked on it during out school break. One of my favorite winter memories.

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  4. Jeanne, I am so glad you enjoyed the CDs :) It's still snowing...not sure if it will stop, or continue on through the night, but it's not accumulating much, about 4-5 inches so far.

    Rest is exactly what I needed, Jenny, and something I seldom let myself do--feels lazy. But working a puzzle, that's work :) so I can do that and not feel guilty about it.

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  5. Regroup is a good word for it, Barbara. I feel like I need to shift gears and start looking ahead now that the rush is past.

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  6. Sometimes I need to take a day or two off, too. We all need to renew ourselves now and then.

    =)

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  7. We all need those quiet moments to recharge the mind and body. I confess that I was hoping a small bit of snow would stretch over to central KY. No such luck.

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  8. The Austins in Ioway always got one nice jig saw puzzle under the tree at Christmas too. 500, 750 or 1000 pieces. And Sue, that is it exactly! It is work so we can sit and do that work . . . instead of getting up and shelling beans or washing curtins or cleaning cupboards. I'm a goin out now and buy me a jigsaw puzzle or 4. lol I need rested up.

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  9. Sue and Michelle, I've really enjoyed the break. Today it's back to work, but I feel ready to go at it again.

    Wish we could have sent you some snow, Michelle. Ours is melting now--it's raining. Not nearly as pretty as yesterday.

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  10. PS. My offering today is a Halloween story poem if you'd like to take a look before the 31st passes us by:

    Halloween Horror: A Ghostly Tale

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  11. Your snowy day looks quite cozy. I would love to have that unexpected surprise of waking to snow.
    We had all rain with some gusty winds but no where near as bad as the derecho from this summer.
    I told the kids the other day that is was about time to get the table set up so that we could start working on jigsaw puzzles. We all enjoy working on them throughout the winter months when we're stuck indoors.
    Hope you get well rested and ENJOY the snow!

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  12. Good on you for taking time to recharge/renew.
    It has been in the upper 70's here, but looks like we may get a sprinkle or two this evening. So ready for it to be fall...

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  13. I've always loved doing jigsaw puzzles though it's a year or two since I last did one. It sounds as though the snow is giving you chance to wind down and recover from all your travelling - it certainly looks pretty. Shame about there still being leaves on the trees though especially your poor mulberry.

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