the weekend

Oh my goodness, I didn't nearly take as many pictures as I had planned of our weekend. It was a time of doing of many different kinds:

beer, yeast and Husband's quality control lab

We - and when I say we, I mean my husband - brewed the first batch of beer (thank you, Santa Claus for the supplies!)  If it turns out it will be called "Mystery Ale" on account of the ingredients which weren't all immediately recognizable.  If it is really gross, it will be called compost.

Thrifting:  this is the only picture I got of that outing.  Husband needed new jeans and evidently a dart board - who knew?  I needed some knit shirts for a project or seven that I'm working on which I am not talking about yet.  I promise when I do talk about them, I will do so here first.  Of course the children never know what they need until they get to the store.  It turns out one needed a gorgeous wool/angora hoodie, and the other a handful of Skittles from the old-fashioned vending machine.

Loving:  This gentle soul whom I lovingly refer to as "the meatball" to distinguish him from the neighbor's dog whom we call "the fluffball".  Doesn't that face just tell you that you must drop everything and pet him right now?  Or maybe he is contemplating what ironic twist of fate transported him from warm, sunny Hawaii to New England.  Which reminds me of my grad school roommate from Thailand, who, on seeing the first snowfall, kept uttering: "I think I may have made a mistake!"



Skating on our teeny tiny pond out back with the new ice skates.  It turns out that the ice was solid, but really, really wet.  And this is how our children learned (again) that snowpants are not watertight.

Cooking soup and pasta sauce and baking pizza and granola.  We spend a lot of time in the kitchen as a family.  In fact, after our beds I think the dining room chairs are hands down our most frequently used pieces of furniture.  Which makes me think that it may really be time to finish painting the kitchen and dining room. And to bake some more things like bread and cookies.  Yes, that feels about right, doesn't it?

I love how each season has it's activities.  I tend to want to cook and bake comforting, nutritious meals when it is cold out.  I love to sit with the dog (or a guinea pig) and pet them, read stories to the children in front of the woodstove, venture out for short periods of time and I especially love to work in my studio.  There is something about the season that makes me turn inward, into myself, into my home, into my family.

But as soon as the year turns, I also look forward, thinking of the summer, when we will shed the layers, spend most of our days outside (hello, garden!), watch tadpoles grow in the pond, explore the woods and end our afternoons in places like this:

Really, it's practically just around the corner.