Week 26: Cold. Very cold. Oh. And snowy.

Yesterday marked the 26th week since I had my knees replace. That's the six month mark and things are progressing swimmingly. The twins are performing well in all facets of life but one: I can't kneel down worth a damn! Putting the knees onto a hard surface like the floor is very, very painful. I'll have to invest in some serious knee pads soon. Or, at the very least, remember to roll up a thick coat, throw rug, or cat before I attempt to kneel even to fetch a bowl from the back of the cabinet.

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Terry got home around 5 PM Sunday, swapped out her clothes in her suitcase, grabbed a few hours sleep, and hit the road south at 6 AM Monday morning. She made it to Columbia, SC by 5 PM with only a few short stops along the way. The road was clear and she reported plenty of sunlight along the way. When she called to let me know she had made it, it was nearly 60 degrees (it was just 25 at the Aerie). This morning it was just 5 degrees here in the Northern Tier of PA and snowing again. (It's been lightly snowing since 11 AM on Monday.) At least there's no wind...yet. There IS a high wind warning for later today. She may not want to come home.

She and her cousins were taking all too much pleasure in mentioning the new palm tree they have in the yard...and the 60 degree temperatures. Wait until hurricane season!

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The light snow has accumulated only about an inch maybe two since yesterday which is fine by me. This particular storm, dubbed Juno by the folks at weather.com, is dumping much more snow to the east and south according to the forecast maps. Southeast PA and northern NJ may see up to a foot. Like I said, Terry may not want to come home.

The snow plow has been up and down our hill already this morning. It seemed to have trouble just on the lower edge of our property. Whether there was a patch of ice or the driver just had trouble getting the right gear, or setting up the cinder spreader correctly he had to back up several times to get a running start that carried him the rest of the way up the hill. I'll know more about his troubles when I go out in a bit to fetch the mail. Should be quite a bit between the post office being closed on Monday and my being occupied shoveling snow on Saturday.

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I spent the better part of Monday turning a bunch of semifrozen butternut squash into mash and then freezing the results for use in pies and soups. The garage turns out to be a poor choice for long term storage when the temperatures get down to single digits--or lower--for extended periods. That or the squash need some insulated protection if they are to reside there. Perhaps I should have put them in one of the styrofoam coolers. In any event, I got four containers of two cups each put into the freezer.

I'll be enjoying the small amount that was left over with a little brown sugar and butter as a side dish for my dinner today.

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While digging out the containers for freezing, I discovered the shelf in the cabinet was cock-eyed. I had to pull everything out, cut a couple of "legs" and put them in to support the shelf and then put everything back in. (Hence the complaint about kneeling above.) Conclusion: We have way too much stuff in there unless we are prepared to open a bakery. Why have five or six pie pans (metal, glass, ceramic), five or six muffin/cupcake pans, five bread loaf pans (again, metal, glass and ceramic), two bundt pans, a couple of specialty baking pans (heart shaped? Really?) and scadie-eight gazillion plastic Tupperware containers and their lids, not to mention at least eight different configurations on a frying pan?

I'm sure Terry has some justification for all of the above. If not she'll just point to my fishing/hunting/wood working gear and say, "Well?"