Luxury is ...

Everyone has different ideas about what they consider luxury, what makes them say "it just doesn't get better than this" and for some people it isn't what they can buy.

For me, having been raised in Montana, on a ranch, dealing with lots of hours outside working in below-zero temperatures for months on end, without any "modern conveniences" ... it is being WARM. I actually deal better with cold weather than with hot weather, but it is still a struggle to do outside chores, feeding cattle and horses, pitching hay that the wind blows back in your face, chopping ice in creeks or tanks so they can drink, fighting cold harness buckles or pickup chains.

Clothing has gotten much better over the 40 years I've been doing this. But even if you are not freezing when you come in, for me, I consider it luxury to come in, get out of cold, frozen outer garments and sit in front of a stove where there is actually a real, live fire. A stove that radiates heat and you can actually see flames. I know it is just my imagination, but it "feels" warmer than if you push a button and stand over a heat vent.

This goes back to my childhood. I vividly remember my grandfather coming in from morning feeding, his gray mustash beaded with tiny beads of ice. He would hold his hands over the kitchen cookstove to warm them and pour a cup of coffee from the blue granitewear pot that sat on the back of the Home Comfort range.

Most afternoons, he would stoke up the big black potbellied stove that sat in the living room. Grandpa's "corner" was the corner of the room closest to that stove, with an alcove on one wall that held his built-in bookcase and a couch against the other wall. The couch was close enough that he could sit on the couch and prop his feet on the rim of the stove and his afternoons were often spent like this, reading if he didn't have any minor repairs harness repairs or other inside sit-down jobs.

I often joined him in the afternoons with a book of my own, and ginger cookies if I could coax them from my grandmother, curled up on the other end of the couch. He also had a big black tomcat who shared our space, though I'm sure the cat believed it was his couch and he was sharing, very reluctantly, with us.

Tom did, of course, prefer the place directly across from the stove, where the heat radiated the strongest. When Grandpa would go in to sit down, he would invariably have to move the cat over before he sat. I used to wait, knowing what was coming. Tom would wait until everyone was settled and quiet, apparantly perfectly content and dozing. After Grandpa got his feet up on the stove rim, had the book open and was engrossed in the book, Tom would open one eye, stretch a bit and straighten out one front leg ... just working a kink out here, people ... then in a flash he would reach over, put the paw against the back of Grandpa's thigh, flex and dig claws in and would be off the couch and gone!

Grandpa's swat would never connect with anything except air ... as soon as he would hit the floor the cat would swagger away with plenty of cat attitude ... and I would be giggling.

Even now, one of the things I consider a luxury is being able to sit in my recliner (definitely a modern convenience I appreciate) in front of the wood burning stove in our living room, with my little terrier beside me, a fuzzy blanket over my legs and a good book, watching the flames flicker behind the glass. I'm always glad when cold weather arrives here in Kentucky, cold enough to start a fire up in the wood stove and keep it going.

So for me, luxury isn't a big screen TV ... or a winter vacation in Florida or Arizona. Luxury and contentment is a wood stove, a recliner, a lap dog ... and a good book.