Rhonda's Ramblings

I love when you are driving along the highway in what seems like the middle of nowhere and you suddenly come upon a cute little antique store or gift shop.

Today, I visited on of my favorite middle of nowhere shops. This cute little Christmas gift shop is in an old farmhouse along the highway. Blink and you miss it. They are only open on weekends in December, so shopping days are limited.

I’d been planning on taking a special trip out there this season, and realized that today was my last chance since I will be out of town next weekend. I decided that even though the snow was falling pretty heavily, I would venture out to see what treasures I could find.

And I did find some treasures. Not only is this shop cute and charming, but they are also cheap. Just my style.

Last night, just as I was drifting off to sleep, I suddenly sat up in bed, remembering something that I forgot to do at work.

I think I mentioned that it has been cold here…very cold. So cold that the pipes at work are frozen, which means that there is no working bathroom.

After 8 1/2 hours of no restroom breaks, I had to go pee. And I had to go bad. I didn’t even get a chance to leave for a lunch break, since I was the only employee there. (I work in a retail garden and gift shop.) So, I was in a huge rush to get out of there and find a bathroom quickly.

In my haste, I forgot to blow out the candles and turn off the heater. But of course I didn’t remember until the middle of the night. Well, 12:30 am, which is close to the middle of the night.

So, after a few minutes of deliberations, I got out of bed, bundled up to go out in the freezing cold to drive back to work and blow out the candles. I knew I wouldn’t get good sleep if I didn’t. Worst case scenarios were running through my head. Like the cat getting in and knocking the candle over which would of course lead to a fire and burn all of the Christmas decorations.

But you know what made it all better? When I got in my car, my favorite Christmas album was playing. I found it in my car cassette player yesterday, where I have apparently been storing it since last Christmas.

And mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap,

Last night as my husband and I “settled our brains” for a very short night of sleep, I was wishing we were settling in for a long winter’s nap. I was reminded of this line from The Night Before Christmas
because Jason wore his winter hat to bed last night. Why was this necessary? Because it’s freezing cold!

I’m not used to temperatures in the negative numbers. I’ve lived here for a couple of years, but this is much colder than the last couple of winters. Cold enough that there is ice inside our kitchen windows. Brrr.

Frozen Window

But at least the view outside our windows is beautiful!

View from window

As a side note….Somehow I don’t remember the word “brains” in the poem. I always thought it just said “settled down”.