As it turned out, we got quite a bit more snow that I thought we would, given the meager amount when I went to bed Sunday night. The sun was shining for a while in the morning and it was pristine. Mr. FixIt waited for a while before he went out to blow the snow off the sidewalks. Our snowblower is battery powered and the snow was deep and pretty dense. He had to take it in two sessions to give the battery a chance to recharge.

It never got over freezing yesterday. I was so glad we had nowhere to go. I put a pork roast in the crockpot in the morning and worked on the socks I’m knitting. When my sweetie came back in from his second trip out in the snow, I warmed his tummy with a plate of roast pork, sauerkraut, and fried potatoes. Comfort food is so good on days like this.

I’ve been thinking of my mom a lot the last couple of days. We are coming up to the eighteenth anniversary of her death soon. I was trying to remember what she would have served us when we came in from playing in the snow. She wasn’t much of a cook, but she made the BEST potato soup I’ve ever had. I’ve tried so many times to recreate it with only nominal success. 

I don’t think anything you make in your adult life will stand up to comparison with something your mom or grandma cooked for you when you were a child. Even a grilled cheese and tomato soup from a can tasted better when Mom made it. There was such a huge dollop of love in everything they prepared for us in the kitchens of our youth.

When Grandma made pies, she always took the extra crust, sprinkled it with salt, and baked it. I swear, I could take a whole recipe of pie crust and bake it that way and be hard pressed to not eat the whole thing. I’ve never been terribly taken with the filling in pies anyway. Just give me the crust with salt…or maybe with a little strawberry jam or apple butter on it…and I’m a happy camper.

I will forever miss my mom. 

Her cool hand on my forehead when I was sick. Her warm hugs that comforted me when I cried. The way she stroked my head with her soft fingers when she was putting me to sleep. Humming “Bye oh, Bye oh” when she rocked me. She smelled like powder and love. Her full head of wavy black hair was accentuated by the ruby red lipstick she wore. 

I could make her laugh till she flew into a coughing fit. She didn’t have an easy life with my dad, so I lived to make her laugh and forget her troubles…if even for just a little while. I wish I would have been kinder…more generous…more available to her in her later years. I lived in Colorado for forty years and came home every summer for at least two weeks, sometimes longer. She came to visit me a few times. 

I never understood her insistence that she live here in West Virginia. Till now. And here I am… 1400 miles away from my kids and grandkids. I’m sure they don’t understand my insistence that I live here, either. I spent my entire adult life wishing I lived “back home”. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to have Colorado and West Virginia closer to each other. I understand my mom a lot more now than I did at any other time in my life.

We have no place else to go today and I’ll be finished with this pair of socks in another day or so. We aren’t expecting any more snow in the next couple of days. As I expected, school was cancelled here today…because it snowed yesterday…so the kids get a four day weekend. Maybe their mamas will fill their little tummies with a nice bowl of potato soup when they come in from sledding.

That would be nice.

❄️?❄️

“fire and hail, snow and clouds, wind and weather that obey him,”

Psalms 148:8 NLT