January is the month for store orders. Glossy catalogs. Shopping and planning ahead for another four seasons of gift retail in Hayward Wisconsin. Keep in mind that the gift store at Northwoods Outdoor, is not the main theme here. But that doesn’t discourage us girls in the least. In fact, maybe it comforts us and fortifies our resolve to be the best kind of little piece as we can be of Northwoods. This is where the most beautiful indoor and outdoor furniture and sheds (gazebos, garages, storage sheds, sunrooms, and potential cabins) to be had anywhere are sold here in northern Wisconsin. So, Jo and I are here to invite you in with nice gifts and cards and furnishings. We love the store and we figure our customers do, too. January, being our reset month makes it a busy, interesting time for us.
January, this year, is behaving as a real northern January should. It’s cold. We have had our bone chilling damp weather where it’s zero degrees a lot and snows anyway. This is the kind of cold that creeps up your sleeves and down the back of your neck finding any possible thin places around the edges of all the layers. It settles into your feet and stays there until long after crawling into bed at night. Then there’s the thirty below kind of cold. You don’t know when it happened, but eventually you realize that the cold got to your bones and the only thing to do is to make the stove fire bigger and hotter and stay beside it until the sun comes out in February.
And it’s dry. It’s so dry the carpet crackles with static electricity when you walk across the room. Our ridiculous polyester filled clothing joins in clinging and sparking. Seriously you can see sparks flying in the dark when you take off your stocking cap. Such a dichotomy; sparks and shivers at the same time.
We fight back with pots of water on the stove to bring up the humidity a little. We run steamers, and drink more fluids. We slather lotions and potions on our skin. Hands and feet crack painfully, anyway.
House plants help. Such a miracle. There’s green on this side the glass and a frozen world on that. I doubt there’s a finer , defiant triumph for a home keeper in winter, unless it would be a freezer full of food stores.
Lest you surely think that I’m complaining about winter, let me assure you that I am not. Here’s why. Now that we’ve had a real winter…I know, it’s not over.. now we can have one spring breakup. One definite thawing, one mud season. Oh, there will be joy when the eaves drip in March like spring is finally here, but we aren’t that easily fooled if there’s still snow on the ground and another foot coming by the weekend. Did you know that March can easily deliver more snow than the whole other part of winter put together? So let’s man up and keep our snow shoes handy. April will be prime time for mud and sunshine. The lilacs will bloom by the end of May for sure. Right on time. When they’re supposed to.
The best way I know to win him is to join him. Evenings in the shop are for two of us around here.
Stone House Scribblings 