My Life as a Pioneer Woman

Lots o' leaky pipes; Zero hot cheesy casseroles

So. It’s been real cold here in the Midwest. Real cold. Meaning, naturally, that all I can think about is The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder, which tells the story of how Rose’s mother endured eight months of blizzards. The family had to grind wheat into lumpy bread so they didn’t starve to death and braid hay to burn so they didn’t freeze to death.

I own a coffee grinder like the one the Ingalls used to grind wheat that I bought at an antique store. It’s purely decorative.

I don’t blame Laura for moving to Missouri.

I’m in Ohio, which isn’t the Dakota Territory and I have a real house with walls, but said house is old and drafty. I’ve been wearing my parka indoors and still got a $183 gas bill.

January entertainment has included watching my cat watch the bird feeder and beating my carpets clean in the snow because the internet told me to.

I Googled “The Pioneer Woman Rug Beating” which sent me to a link to Walmart so I could buy “The Pioneer Woman Floral Howdy Typography Arctic White Cotton Oval 1 Piece Bath Rug, 20" x 32."

It really says “Howdy” on it.

Here’s my Marlboro Man helping me beat rugs. He’s not the flannel shirt, straw chewin’ type, but an Austrian philosopher, so let’s call him Übermensch. I don’t even have to cook my Übermensch Cowboy Brats for dinner or Cowboy Kraut for lunch or Cowboy Muesli for breakfast or give him a shovel to eat them with.

True Story: When I asked him to throw the rug over the rail, he threw the rug over the rail tossing it up and over so it landed in my yard. I’ve never had a man listen so hard to me before. Übermensch.

My rugs were dirty again in two days. But I guess they are free of bacteria now?

Less fun than rug beating has been frozen pipes. I bet Ree Drummond doesn’t haul buckets of water to fill her toilet tank.

No running water helps you understand why people used to bathe once a week real quick. Übermensch and I do not live together, which comes in handy when I need to shower and refill my buckets, because I never got around to digging a well last summer.

I know, I know, I could melt snow but now there’s dirt crumbs from the carpet and birdseed all over it.

Even less fun than frozen pipes is burst pipes after the frozen pipes melt.

Welcome to my latest episode of This Old %O#$(*$U#(@!?!?! House. Although, it was courteous of the house to pour water into the garage drain.

And I got to feel all brawny running to the hardware store to buy one “Water Main Shut Off Valve” (vocab word of the week). My house doesn’t have a normal water shut-off valve, so I had to find one of those special T-shaped things that looks like an elephant IUD.

I could see Rose hauling water into infinity from the local river to avoid paying a city utility, but I will appreciate running water when I get it back.

I’m also grateful for pizza. If I could time travel, I’d bring a stack of pizzas to the Ingalls family, winter of 1880. Can you imagine the cheese description Laura and Rose would have written?

What I’ve been not enjoying this week:

• Water

• Hot water

*BREAKING NEWS—

Plumber arrived and here’s the culprit:

: