I put up with winter these days.
I don’t hate it, but I don’t look forward to the cold, especially when the wind’s blowing.
That’s a long way from my time as a child up north in Val D’Or, Que. My brother and I would embrace winter, spending as much time as possible outdoors tobogganing and building forts in the backyard.
Looking back, we would scoop up as much snow as we could gather in the backyard, piling it up to make enclosed snow domes (not igloos per se, as we wouldn’t make snow bricks), and creating tunnels linking the domes.
Yep, many hours spent outdoors, digging and crawling around in snowsuits, and much of it was out of the wind, as we were under the snow.
Nothing like that these days. For starters, we’d need a lot more snow to make tunnels big enough for big old me. And my daughter is now too old for that stuff. She did like building open snow forts out in front of our house when she was younger, however. I’d try to pile all the snow shoveled from the driveway and walkway into one big pile for her to work with.
As for my outdoor time these days, it’s more or less limited to shoveling and scraping. I’d like to say barbecuing too, but as I type this, my Big Green Egg is frozen shut!
It may take a can of coals lowered through the chimney to warm it up enough to open it again. With Christmas approaching, that’s probably what I’ll have to do this week.
One thing about that Egg, when I’m cooking on it in the winter, it does encourage me to spend more time outside, even for long cooks. I don’t babysit the entire cook time, but I’ll putter out there, or even relax, dressed for the weather, and sitting outside, conditions permitting.
My wife and daughter may think I have a screw loose when I’m out there on some cold days, but it can be quite peaceful.
So too can slipping into the hot tub on a calm evening. Sensei Jeff has his backyard set up so he can hang out in the hot tub and keep tabs on the food cooking on his Eggs. Our tub is too far away for that option, but a dip in the hot tub can take away one’s aches and pains, regardless of the season.
Now, I’ll just have to shovel a path to the hot tub, so our feet don’t freeze on the way out there.
Missing out on street sales
My chest cold this year put me on the shelf for the Chatham Goodfellows street sales that took place Friday and Saturday. I didn’t want my congestion to get any worse, and with the foul weather that came through, I’m glad I stayed away.
I’ve done three of the street sales so far, and missed doing it this year.
It also meant I wasn’t Dutch this year; no Van Corcoran this time around. Mark Kloostra, one of the guys who organizes the street sales volunteers, jokes that when Jim Blake and I volunteer under his oversight, we become Dutch for the day, as it seems most of the folks under his watch are of Dutch descent.
So we become Bruce Van Corcoran and Jim Von Blake.
Hopefully, Van Corcoran can return next year. It’s a great cause.
Cookie time
Christmas is a time of treats, and my wife and daughter appear to have found a new awesome recipe for such things.
They created another batch of salted caramel cheesecake bites on the weekend.
These delights have a crumbled graham cracker crumb bottom, and the salted caramel is drizzled on top.
You can easily look up the recipe online, but they start with the graham crumbs, brown sugar, salt and butter; cream cheese, egg and sugar in the middle, and caramel sauce with kosher salt on top.
These bite-size treats are just amazing.
The juggler
I’m really proud of our daughter, how she’s juggling a busy schedule of school, dance and work. She still manages to get in some quality time with her buddies as well.
And she helps other classmates.
On Sunday, she spent six hours at work, and them came home to tackle her schoolwork. She had to decline a visit to her aunt’s that evening, due to the workload.
But she still managed to take the time to help a couple of classmates with their math homework.
A great thing about technology today is that Brenna didn’t even have to leave the house to do so. She connected to them online and they discussed their math problems each from the comfort of their own homes.
Our teenager will make excellent use of her holiday down time, catching up on her sleep. She’s earned it, with a full slate at school, dance four days of the week, and two or three shifts at work each week too.
The kid is a master juggler, who only periodically needs to be nudged back on track.
