Last Sunday in January

It's been a cold and snowy week. Any thoughts of "this hasn't been such a bad winter" are long since gone and the process of bundling up, shovelling, navigating white outs and drifting, and generally freezing one's ass off is well under way.

As I was attempting to take a decent picture of poor Aristotle this morning, I accidentally took this picture and then my phone died. I have no intention on going out again, so here you are, complete with finger in the corner.

Feel free to decide what his caption might be.


On different, less thrilling notes, I was given an amaryllis bulb at Christmas time and it is making a show of itself now.

It is not something I would have purchased for myself because I am NOT a houseplant type of gal. I much prefer to tend flowers outside in the nice weather, but it does give a little colour to the kitchen.

This morning I had an old favourite for breakfast, steel cut oats. I put raisins and cinnamon in it, too. Are you familiar with it? It's much chewier and filling, I think, than regular oatmeal.

If you look closer, you can see my Sharpie marker writing of quantities on the side of the container. This is so I don't have to keep putting my reading glasses on to remind myself of how much water and how much oatmeal to use each time.

And now for something that I am gleefully excited about... yesterday I bought this two-pack of sunglasses which are also reading glasses (magnifiers). For a few years now I have either just put on my reading glasses and squinted away in the sun in order to read, or I have done an awkward job of wearing reading glasses with sunglasses propped over top of them in order to read (beside the pool, on vacation, in the car, etc.) I have no idea why I waited so long to buy these, but I can't wait until I have an occasion to use them! Granted, I'll still have to have regular sunglasses just for walking around or driving, because I won't be able to see long distance properly with reading glasses on... Anyone else have these?

It's a mind numbingly exciting day of grocery shopping and a bit of cleaning ahead. I have a frozen roast of beef which I might do up in the Instantpot with some onion soup mix. I might even throw another mason jar full of bird seed on the snow for the little freezing birds. Will the fun never end!