Thanks for the advice, all. Here's what happened yesterday:
04:00 - Woke up.
04:45 - Departed for rural home of an acquaintance (I'll call him "Jim")who had told my wife that I was welcome to join him hunting.
05:30 - Realized that finding Jim's house in the dark with skimpy directions was going to be difficult.
05:45 - Got lost.
06:00 - Arrived at Jim's house, about 15 minutes behind schedule.
06:15 - Finished putting on extra clothing layers and hunting gear.
06:20 - Started following Jim into the woods down a steep, brushy creek bank.
06:35 - Arrived at treestand; Jim departs
06:36 - Discovered that tree had no climbing steps
06:37 - Discovered that tree had long, sharp thorns
06:50 - Finally climbed into treestand through sheer desperation not be found sitting on the ground like an idiot.
06:55 - Loaded gun, tried to settle down.
07:03 - Legal hunting hours began.
07:05 - While basting in my own sweat, wondered if I hadn't put on too many layers.
07:10 - Started to debate trade-off between alarming deer with movement and not seeing deer due to fogged-over eyeglasses.
07:15, 07:30, 07:45 - Wiped off eyeglasses.
07:33 - Sunrise.
09:00 - After seeing nothing but a few birds, finally climbed down to mark a tree with my scent.
09:20 - Climbed back into the stand.
11:15 - Finally called it a day; didn't see any deer.
12:00-13:00 - Saw four road-killed deer on the way home.
The weather was clear, cold, and still. The stand was situated about 9 feet up a tree in an area of thick brush and small trees about 30 yards from a small creek.
I realize that I wasn't nearly as patient and stealthy as I should have been. That was partly due to the fact that I hadn't been able to scout the area and wasn't sure that I was facing the right direction, so I moved around some to see if any deer were passing behind me.