Today is a snow storm. We are all in the house, holed up to wait out the storm, which has blessed us with three inches since lunchtime and looks to a lot dump more on us by tomorrow night.

One dog is yapping because it is suppertime, one dog is sitting in the middle of the living room looking as if he has lost something of value, and the third dog is in the basement after a dose of Pepcid AC. She had a bad case of heartburn for three days and is limited to chicken and rice and is not happy about it, as she prefers a diet of grass, things which stink, and whatever she finds that is borderline edible on the counters. The girls are upstairs, playing Santana and doing their version of dancing, which consists of jumping around until their dad yells or someone cries, whichever comes first, kind of an American Idol contest, I guess. Rocky is in his room, burping out Christmas songs. American Idol redux. Or is that reflux?

It is getting dark. It looks to be a long, long evening.

I remember driving across country, and seeing a deserted house up on a hill, surrounded by corn fields. I started thinking about the women who traveled with their husbands across the country to homestead. These women did not have neighbors nearby, television, radio, the Internet, or much else in social outlets. They had small houses or cabins, and they had only their husbands and children and livestock for company. Sometimes all of them lived in one room. How did they ever survive and stay sane?

It makes me wonder. Perhaps they were of "sterner stuff" than I am.