How We Are Staying Warm Today

If any family or friends are worried about whether we are staying warm today, rest assured that we are watching the snow bluster and blow from a (mostly) warm and quiet house.

None of us have to go anywhere, and none of us have had occasion to go outside today. (Except for me, but only very briefly.)

We had a big pancake breakfast, veggie burgers for lunch, and the soup for supper will soon be on the stovetop. There's been lots of coffee, and there will probably be toddies after the kids are in bed.

We took down our Christmas things (with one more round of twinkly Christmas music playing in the living room) and James and Owen argued about who would get to take down the star. (Felix did.) We put away the nativity sheep, each of which has been reglued several times over. (Owen.)

James did homeschool under a big blanket, and Felix, who is six months old today, ate his first bites of mushed sweet potato. He made funny faces and most of it came right back out, but any time you offered him a spoon he would take it.

I set up the stepladder in the (very cold) garage and loaded up the box with the stockings and ornaments, and the box with the nativity set, and the box with Christmas centerpiece, and the box with the boy's fake Christmas tree. I also unscrewed the real tree from the base and spilled about a million needles between the corner where it had been set up and the front step. It's sitting in a snowdrift beside our trash can for the next few days, and our living room looks rather bare.

We'd made grand plans to move our swivel chair into the living room, but James and Owen both protested against this plan. We're yet to come up with a suitable alternative.

I was going to shovel the driveway, but then it would just need to be shoveled again tomorrow afternoon. I'll just wait until tomorrow afternoon.

Every once in awhile we'll hear a car crunching through the snow outside, but the street has been largely quiet. If anyone that we know has been out in this weather, we hope that your journey is quick and that there's a hot pot of good coffee at the other end of it.