All of the things I dislike about cold weather are related to being uncomfortable. Being cold makes everything harder to do, especially when fingers and feet are numb and ready to warm up by the fire. However, the cold does offer some conveniences, too. A windowsill refrigerator is one of them.
Yes, I’m stretching for that silver lining here, I know. Sometimes the refrigerator is really a freezer, as Miss Kitty has found. I’ve been keeping her wet foot on the windowsill refrigerator in the kitchen. On the coldest mornings we’ve had lately, her wet food was actually frozen.
Memories of a Parisian Windowsill Refrigerator
It’s one of my favorite memories, actually. While we were in Paris in 2013, we stayed at The Hôtel de la Porte Dorée. It was a wonderful place to stay, and not too far from the River Seine. We walked everywhere there, and took trains, subways, and trams, too. We’d go to the bistros, bakeries, and bodegas to get our snacks and necessities, all within walking distance. But there was no refrigerator inside the room at the hotel, so it’s a good thing everything we needed was nearby. However, at one of the little shops, I found a yogurt I really, really, loved. They came in little crocks, single serving size but in a four-pack. What to do with the other, as yet uneaten portions?
The weather was cool, but above freezing that December. And our room had a wonderful tall window – the old kind that have wrought iron rails on the lower half and windows that could open. The windowsill outside the glass yet inside the rail made the perfect ledge to act as a sort of windowsill refrigerator. And that’s where I kept my yogurt. That delicious yogurt is what started me on my own yogurt-making craze. I still eat fresh yogurt every day, but now I make it myself, and I don’t store it in the windowsill. But I do keep Miss Kitty’s can of half-eaten cat food there in our own cool location.
Lost Memories
The hard drive where I had stored all of my photos from that month-long trip to Europe crashed several years ago. I’ve lost them all and it makes me so sad. Rob has some photos on his computer, but not the ones I took. So I have nothing to show for the windowsill refrigerator I used during our stay at the hotel in Paris. I’m going to search through the files to see if I have any backups of my website from that time. If so, then I may be able to retrieve some of the many images I had. Unfortunately, I transferred my old website to a new url and didn’t do it properly. I didn’t know how, and just ended up losing everything I had at the old website.
Other Cold-Weather Perks
Anyway, cold weather does have a few advantages. I don’t have to worry about the freezer defrosting and losing all of our frozen food, at least in the ones outside on the porch. Any canned drinks on the floors in the kitchen where I keep them by the pantry stay cold. Well, maybe too cold sometimes. But for the most part, they’re just cold.
Hmmmm. I’m running out of positivity, and it’s almost time to go out into the cold to get more firewood brought inside. Y’all stay warm wherever you are!
Contact Mad Rox: (479) 409-3429 or madison@madisonwoods and let me know which hat I need to put on 🙂 Madison for art, Roxann for real estate, lol. Or call me Mad Rox and have them both covered!
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Author/Artist Info
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Roxann Riedel is a salesperson for Montgomery Whiteley Realty, artist, owner of the only ginseng nursery in Arkansas, and the author of books and this website. Madison Woods is the pen-name she uses for her creative works. She’s a self-taught artist who moved to the Ozarks from south Louisiana in 2005. Her paintings of the Ozark-inspired scenes feature lightfast pigments from Madison county, Arkansas. Her inspiration is nature – the beauty, and the inherent cycle of life and death, destruction and regeneration. Wild Ozark is also the only licensed ginseng nursery in Arkansas. Here’s the link for more information on the nursery
There’s always a discount for paintings on the easel 😉
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