Wednesday

I think that if I ate nothing but sweets for breakfast and for lunch, I'd work through the pile of goodies in our pantry by... the first day of spring! Maybe later. It almost makes me want to have a holiday party, so that I can put out trays of my favorite treats, but for the fact that I no longer enjoy attending big parties and therefore I have to think I am not a good candidate to host one. 

Ed and I are slow eaters. The 2-person Thanksgiving dinner we bought from the restaurant this year? It took us three days of eating to get through it. We ran out of turkey meat, but the rest was abundant enough to last us into the weekend. You know how parents of teenage boys complain that they never have enough in the fridge to satisfy the raging appetites of their sons? We are the opposite of that: we get full very quickly, all the more so since our movement pace has slowed down considerably with the arrival of very cold air. 

I like to bake. I've always baked for my family and for a while I continued to bake for Ed, but honestly, unless I make something that the kids will devour (and they are fussy), I may as well put away my baking pans this winter because we just cant work through an added cake or tart or confection, given all the sugared items we have stored in our cupboards, spilling out into the mudroom. 

I read in the paper today that "A plane fueled by fat and sugar has crossed the Atlantic Ocean" -- Virgin Airlines Boeing 787, so no small little prop aircraft there! I tell you, everywhere I turn this week, there is talk of butter fat and sugar.

Nonetheless, I continue to be tantalized by all that I see in cookbooks, and in bakeries pictured on my computer screen. I suppose I should be relieved that we do not really have exciting cafe-bakeries near where I live. How could I resist them in the cold months of winter?! Well, at least I'd get vicarious pleasure in taking in the fragrance of cakes and coffee, and in watching others devour that, which I cannot possibly digest anymore (after eating a sweet morning bun for breakfast and gingerbread cookies for lunch). 

Summer tempts with flowers. Winter tempts with cinnamon rolls and gingerbread doused in chocolate.

It's supposed to warm up today and indeed, it does creep up to 40F (4C) by midafternoon, but tell that to the chickens when they step out of the coop this morning: it's only in the teens (so, close to -10C) when I go looking for them in the barn. The snow, thin layer that it is, is slated to mostly melt by the day's end, but for now, it's still pretty to look at. Crunchy with every step.

Breakfast -- yeah, that morning bun! And it's good!

During this morning meal I try to convince Ed that our bakeries bake cookies (same ones everywhere -- chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin) that are too big, too ordinary, and therefore inappropriate for a holiday plate which insists on variety and maybe a little surprise. Full disclosure: he does not agree. Break off what you want from the big cookie -- he tells me, missing entirely the impact of visual pleasure of snacking and sampling.

And another morning passes with delightful details of the holiday season: checking on wrapping papers, on winter caps and scarves in the closet, on flight sales (I have gone back to exchange tickets purchased for next year repeatedly to take advantage of sales; it takes time, but it's worth it!), checking in on friends as well. So easy to let that slide by with the demands of the month clamping down on you. I don't want to be that person who has to be prodded to write!

And soon it is time to pick up th kids. Yes, after my lunch break for coffee and... holiday treats!

The kids happily tell me that there was still snow on the ground for recess. I glance at the weather forecast for the early weeks of December. It's a cold one! Did someone say that we're in for a mild winter? 

A few minutes outside...

(there is a brown hydrangea in her hair... she thinks it calls for a more serious countenance)

... and in we go. Books, snacks and magnet cubes. That pretty much sums up our afternoon together.

(the tree, in sunlight...)

If you ask me which is better -- the crunch of a frozen path or the slush of a muddy walkway, I'll take the former right now. We're not yet fed up with the cold -- too, we have enough sugar-fueled energy to meet it head on.  Tomorrow, no matter what, we'll head out for a hike. For sure. Maybe.

with love...