'Twas the Saturday before Christmas...

I'm going to try and get you caught up on my life as it happened over the weekend prior to Christmas. On Saturday I baked a batch of sugar cookies. I had forgotten my signature holly leaf and Christmas tree cookie cutters and the recipe at home. Argh! I went to my sister's house because she had given me the recipe many years ago and looked for it in her cookbook cabinet. I found four recipes for sugar cookies and knew that none of them was the one I use. I went on to plan B and called my friend Joyce who I had given the recipe to several years ago. Luckily, she was home. Instead of holly leaves and trees, I improvised with a cup and just made round cookies. Ornaments, we'll call them. I also baked some English muffin bread that turned out quite yummy. I got the recipe out of our Wichita Eagle holiday cookbook. My family (especially Dad) loved it.

Just before Saturday evening Mass my sister, Jenny, and her family arrived in Ellinwood. We all went to church and then back to Mom and Dad's for potato soup. It had snowed a bit during the morning and the soup sounded good for a cold, snowy night.

After we ate, I decided to go to my Uncle Ed's house and see him and my cousins (his four boys are more like my long-lost brothers than my cousins). I ventured out with my nephew Jeffrey (he's 14 and very talkative) into the night. It's important at this point of the story to tell you that Ellinwood got about a foot of snow the previous weekend. So there was still about 8 inches of snow on the ground in some places.

Jeffrey and I headed south toward Stafford County and turned off the highway to go east toward Ed's house. Silly me. I had forgotten that this particular road drifts terribly and my poor little Honda was no match for the piles of snow that were waiting for us there. I got about a 1/4 of a mile down the dirt road when I got high-centered and had no hope of getting unstuck on my own. I reached for my cell phone, but couldn't reach it because it was back at my parents' house. Crap! Jeffrey gets out and tries to push me. Nothing budged. Neither one of us are really dressed for snow. He has on some thin pajama things and Crocs (at least he had socks on, too) and I had on a thin jacket over my t-shirt and pants. But at least I was wearing tennis shoes and socks. So I decided that I'd walk to the nearest house which meant back to the highway and about a 1/4 mile north. I hoped they were home. Jeffrey loaned me his coat, which was much heavier than the one I was wearing. I started walking and was disgusted to find that I was walking directly into the wind -- holy cow it was cold! Once I got to the highway I was sheltered a bit from the wind. I kept thinking that at least there was a full moon and I could see where I was going. Once I got on the highway and headed north I was able to make a little better time. But I hadn't gotten far when I heard a car approaching from the south and I tried to decide whether I would flag them down or not. I said a prayer for them to not run me over and for them to not be a crazed serial killer. My prayers were answered on both counts. Some nice woman (I had no clue who she was) stopped and let me use her cell phone to call my uncle's house. Once I had told my cousin Dan where I was stuck, I thanked the woman profusely and turned down her offer to sit and warm up in her car. I explained that my nephew was waiting at my car and I needed to get back over there. I walked back and it wasn't nearly as bone-chilling on the return trip with the wind at my back. Shortly after I returned to the car, my cousins Scott, Dan and Jason showed up to rescue us. They pulled us out and I got turned around so I was going back toward the highway. I got stuck again following Jason out but I was able to get going again. Then I got stuck a third time and I couldn't budge the car this time. They pulled me out and just kept on pulling me until there was no more snow. When they stopped to remove the tow chain, I handed them the Christmas letters for their families that I was planning to hand-deliver and told them it was nice to see them and thanks so much for rescuing me, but I wasn't going to be able to go any further. It was almost 9 o'clock by this time and I was exhausted.

In retrospect there are so many things about this incident that are just ridiculous. But Jeffrey loved it that we had an adventure together, even though he kept complaining about having a frost-bitten toe. As far as I know it hasn't turned black yet, so I think he'll be all right.