On Wintering in the Northeast without a Garage

Tools needed:

Ice scraper/snow brush and shovel, for obvious reasons.

Broom and dustpan -- the broom for swishing away large amounts of snow from your car (over 3 inches) and the dustbin as a makeshift shovel to remove even larger amounts of snow from your car (over 6 inches).

An even temperament, for when you have a baby or young child who is sick, and your husband is away on business, but you still have to get dressed, get your child dressed, and go outside to clear and move your cars before 10 when the snowplow comes through your parking lot. If you don't move the cars by 10, they will be towed. However, you couldn't possibly leave them on the street overnight, because the city has a "Snow Emergency" during which all cars parked on the street are towed while city plows try to clear the streets. There is no lovely lingering over hot chocolate and chicken soup -- after EACH AND EVERY STORM, you must get out and move your car, whether it be on the street or in the parking lot.

A hot bath, for after you have cleared your cars, and both you and your daughter are soaked to the bone and freezing.

A large doormat, for scraping not only ice and snow off your feet, but also the copious amounts of sand that follow you into your apartment. Apparently, sand is the ice-melt of choice here, and it builds up over the winter months so that you would think we lived near the beach. It gets ground into the bottom of your shoes, into the floor of the car, and every fiber of the carpet in the apartment. It scrapes the finish off the kitchen and bathroom floors. Somehow, by about April, food even tastes a little gritty.

A reliable alarm clock, for waking up 20 minutes earlier than you normally would to make it to work, church or anything else that requires your leaving the house. You see, even when it doesn't snow, it is so cold that the icy frosty buildup on your windshield and windows takes a good deal of time to remove.

I would like to take a few moments to eulogize (sniff) my dear Phone. Phone worked hard -- she logged an average of 2600 minutes of use each month. She was abused by a three year old (and a thirty-three year old!) who regularly dropped, lost, and sometimes even threw her. She was neglected, running out of battery nearly every day and having to beg to be recharged. The nights left alone in the car in the harsh New England weather certainly wore her down, as well. However, the final straw came when she was placed, harmlessly, in the pocket of my jeans; and then, not-so-harmlessly, in the washing machine.

You will be missed, phone.

Wells, Maine in late June of this year. Lord's Seafood is behind us, and we are waiting for a table so we can give Jacob the experience of eating Maine Lobster and Maine Shrimp. He didn't much care for the lobster, but he couldn't get enough of the Maine shrimp. They are smaller, but considerably sweeter than Gulf Shrimp, and I admit that I can't get enough of them either! I usually keep a bag in my freezer for shrimp emergencies :)

No deeply-seated reason exists -- selfishness is as shallow as we think it is.

Breastfeeding in public is somewhat legal but mostly socially unacceptable, so when I need to pump so my bottle-fed baby still gets all the great benefits of breastmilk, I tend to eschew public arenas. So, yesterday when I found myself traveling with a two month old baby and needing to pump, I was grateful to find a nursery area next to the women's restroom at Boston's Logan airport. It was in use, so I waited. I had 30 minutes until my flight began to board, and I began to worry that the woman currently breastfeeding her child wouldn't finish in time for me to do my business. After several minutes, an older woman -- must have been in her 50's or 60's, emerged from the nursery. She took one look at me -- it was obvious I was waiting for the nursery, it was obvious I was a mom, considering the size of the stroller nearly blocking the entrance not only to the nursery, but to the restroom it adjoined -- and came up with some lame excuse for using the nursery. "I'm sorry, I needed a place to sit down, and I needed to hang up my coat." I hate to break it to you, lady, but there is no coat hook in the nursery. And, considering the large number of unoccupied chairs in the waiting area of every nearby gate, I hardly thought it necessary to "hang" your coat when you can simply put it over a chair.

What is up with a woman (who, judging by her age, is completely incapable of producing breastmilk, not to mention the fact she clearly had no child) using the nursery as her personal napping place? She probably parks in handicapped parking, too, because her groceries might spoil if she parked 20 feet farther from her apartment. Grr...

I made $50 brownies last night.

I pulled out the mix, put the water and the oil in the bowl, then realized I had no eggs. I was about to scrap the project, then my husband said he would go to the store for the eggs -- he really wanted the brownies!

With a young baby (7 weeks!) in the house, I don't get out much, so my husband suggested I take the opportunity to grocery shop. Sounds magnanimous, unless you know how much my husband hates grocery shopping. While I'm there -- could I pick up some potatoes for dinner tomorrow, and how about some root beer?

My list of eggs, root beer and potatoes grew to about 9 items, including bread, so that I didn't have to go back in the next couple days. However, once I got to the store, I remembered that we had no more dishwashing liquid, and considering we were having people over for lunch tomorrow, I thought clean dishes might be in order. Then of course, there was the matter of ham. If my husband has ham and english muffins and a wife to cook the egg to go on them, then he eats at home in the morning. Otherwise, Dunkin Donuts is the happy recipient of his patronage. Evaporated milk to make that pumpkin cake I keep meaning to make, until I remember I have no evaporated milk. Then spring water to make Sammy a bottle when we are out and about. Mmmm....eggnog since it isn't available year-round, and two more packages of brownie mix, since now I have eggs. Eggs! I almost forgot the eggs!

At the cash register -- $49.71. Cha-ching! Hannaford's loves it when I make brownies.

By the time I got home, mixed in the eggs and baked the brownies, it was well after midnight. I ate my brownie, carefully made in a muffin pan so as to make individual serving-size pieces. My husband, well, I guess he didn't want the brownies after all -- he went to bed without even a bite. So, I ate his piece, just for good measure.