We got some beautiful new snow yesterday and then more overnight. Get your heavy coat on…mittens & ear muffs…it’s time for a refreshing wintertime walk!
Colorado Blue Spruce
Never know what you'll find on a walk!
Pinyon Pine
Tag: around the house (Page 22 of 27)
"Hi!" - After my walk home from work.
We’ve got some deep cold going on right now!
Has it hit your neck of the woods?
Today broke a record; it only got up to -1!
Tonight will be -21 with windchill around -30! And it’s humid, making the cold seem colder. To breathe deeply makes your lungs hurt, and the moisture in your nose freezes on each in-breath! I walked home from work today (2 miles) instead of taking the bus, just to feel it. Invigorating, but two rules! 1.) Keep moving. 2.) Don’t take your hands out of your mittens, ever! I was amazed at how quickly they got numbed and absolutely chilled to the bone. Shew!
And how grateful I was to come home to a cozy house with a hubby who squeezed me close to warm up my icy skin! And then to sit with my feet against the space heater and have a steaming cup of tea in the dimming twilight. ***Ahhhhhhh***
Lately I’ve really been in purge mode…get rid of all that stuff! Do you ever wonder how the stuff piles up so fast? I swear it breeds in the night.
So today I took the Christmas tree down (always sad) and Hubby and I tackled the living room, closet, and a little bit of the bedroom. Our apartment is 650 square feet, so we have to be vigilant about clutter if we want to avoid the storage-unit look. So after our purge-a-thon, our place is starting to feel more like a sanctuary! It feels so good, and today I was especially relishing the sweet, sweet sight of sunshine streaming in the windows of our freshly cleaned living room. Ya know, a clean house really is under-rated.
And so take a look at the transformation!
The Before picture was taken this morning while I was un-decorating the tree, and the After picture taken tonight. In the After picture, there’s actually supposed to be a white wool rug in the center of the living room to break up the expanse of carpet. But I was airing it out today and the wind blew it down onto the roof of our landlady who lives below us. Woopsy! She’ll probably be wondering what in the world a rogue heap of wool is doing outside her second floor window…
Before
and…
After
We’ve had our first snowfall — 2 months late! It was an eerily warm and dry fall, but we’ve officially begun winter now, which feels good. I like winter. It’s definitely cold out as I write this — 6 degrees — with a few inches of crunchy snow on the ground.
On Thursday, I rearranged my work schedule so that I could ride my bike out to the clinic to get my bee venom allergy shots in the morning before the snow storm rolled in. I usually do this 16-mile-roundtrip bike ride after work every Thursday afternoon, but this time it was around 8:30 in the morning. It was such a great ride. I always feel great after that big ride, but Thursday’s was special because traffic was light, people were home with their families, and I kept riding through clouds of wonderful scents wafting from peoples’ homes — apple cinnamon pancakes from one, bacon from another, pinyon wood smoke from yet another, and nutmeg cookies from another. I love the smells I get as I ride, particularly when the air’s moist as it was that day. In the evenings, I love the smell of woodsmoke coming out of chimneys, the pasta smell that always comes from one particular house on my route.
By the time I got to work the flakes were really coming down, and several hours later the boss urged everyone to go home early before it got too treacherous. I rode home slowly through the falling snow, enjoying it thoroughly, then cozied up with tea and a book in front of the glowing Christmas tree once I was home.
Anyway, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you! Did you have a good Christmas? I did…nice and low-key. And I’m ready to begin a new year; 2010 was a good enough year, though somewhat challenging in the areas of job and health. 2011 will be better.
We had a quiet New Year’s Eve yesterday; during the day I got caught up with lots of loose ends around the house, purged some crap from the closet, watched an interesting program about John Lennon and ate “fun food” — Hubby’s delicious homemade chicken-veggie soup, fresh pineapple, GORP, some almond roca, and mate. Awesome food combo, don’t you think?! I also ate snow ice cream while huddled next to the space heater in the living room in front of the Christmas tree. I just love the coziness of winter nights! We watched fireworks from our bedroom window, then hit the sack. Which is what I’m going to do now, too…
Tomorrow I need to repair a flat on one of our bikes and re-pot our spindly avocado plant, then more cleaning and purging. My mom gave me a really great book for Christmas called Lillian Too’s 168 Feng Shui Ways to Declutter Your Home. The other night I could not put this book down! It’s in an easy-to-read format, and is extremely motivating and inspiring!
To bed now…
Happy 2011!
New Year's Eve eat-fest
I love Christmas, and I have great Christmas memories from childhood, so it’s a sweet time of year to me.
I find that Christmas is pretty much what you make it out to be (hmm, kinda like life), so I savor the aspects of it that I like, and politely bow out of — or totally ignore — the rest (like holiday potlucks with coworkers, secret santa gift exchanges, white elephant gift parties, the obnoxious commercialism of the season in general, etc!).
What I love are the Christmas trees, the lights and candles and decorations, Bing Crosby singing carols, spending time with people I love, the smell of pine boughs…of cookies in the oven, and the cozy, dreamy atmosphere of all those things combined.
For me, the Christmas season means taking a break from ordinary life to slow down and soak up the beautiful sights, smells, and sounds that are unique to this season. And if I feel any stress creeping in, I know that I need to simplify my plans or cut back on any obligations I have in order to preserve my love of this time of the year.
One of my favorite “Christmas delights” is to ride my bike around the historic neighborhoods after dark to see the Christmas lights adorning the beautiful, century-old houses with grand Christmas trees in the windows and stockings hung on the fireplace mantels.
How do you create your Christmas season? What are your favorite things to savor?
Welcome to The Herbangardener! This site is dedicated to nourishing the body + spirit, backyard organic gardening, traditional foodways, and homesteading in the heart of the city. Do come along and join me!
Get my COLORING BOOK here!
"There's nothing more pleasurable than making things by hand, and nothing more beautiful than handmade things."
"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."
- Theodore Roosevelt
"Only after the last tree has been cut down; only after the last fish has been caught; only after the last river has been poisoned; only then will you realize that money cannot be eaten."
- Cree Nation Tribal Prophecy
© 2024 The Herbangardener
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑