Snow Days

Water is boiling for pasta, and my umpteenth cup of tea is getting cold. The sun sets on my third snow day. I can’t really complain about the bliss of having three unexpected vacation days, but I won’t be sad to get back to work. Introvert though I be, I do like people, particularly my familiar people that I usually see every day.

Watched: A Little Chaos (about the landscape of Versailles under the reign of Louis XIV, RIP Alan Rickman), Far from the Madding Crowd (the chipperest Thomas Hardy story by far, and the light and landscape are just too beautiful), Wimbledon (oh the technical inaccuracies, also in what world is Kirsten Dunst the number one tennis player; Serena was definitely winning majors when this movie was made), The Painted Veil (because everyone knows the best romance is the one where the heroine falls in love with the husband she hates).

Made: two batches of buttermilk biscuits, braised cabbage (that I braised way too long and thus threw away), orange yogurt cake (to eat with more yogurt for breakfast), heirloom popcorn with butter and truffle salt.

Crafted: the uber long, denim skirt with cross-stitch panels (started in July, finished in February), cast off two complicated knit dish towels (literally, I just needed to cast off to finish these but had put if off for well over a year).

Explored: my park (there’s a whole new upper loop with a hidden soccer field that I at first thought was a frozen pond, but it was like a whole new world was opening up to me. Monument Valley Park is the gift that just keeps on giving).

Read: Daughter of Time (a mystery dedicated to absolving Richard III of the deaths of the two princes in the tower), The Baker’s Daughter (because being the housekeeper for a married, absent-minded artist who is ten years your senior and then being such a good cook he marries you is every girl’s dream), Homecoming (reading this for curriculum choices at school), and Brooklyn (spoiler: it’s heartless to kill off the big sister. The truth is big sisters never get a fair shake in literature. The heroines are always the middle sisters or only children or orphans).

Additionally, I did a lot of yoga, reorganized my books, deep scrubbed the kitchen sink, and dusted my bedroom. Oh, and the hyacinths that I was forcing bloomed, so the whole place smells like spring whilst the rest of the world is buried in snow (except for the trails at the park. Those were plowed before any of the roads).

I probably should have read more and watched less, but snow days are gifts and whims are not to be questioned.