Entertain Great Hopes

 We are blessed indeed. We had our whole family here for New Year's Day!  All ten grands and the kids and their spouses.  It was a snowy day and cold downstairs.  I kept wrapping the grands in blankets.  We need a pellet stove or something!  It's so COLD!

 I'm still taking hungry sniffs when I peel Cuties!  Somehow they aren't smelling as Christmasy to me.  Ha!

 Raspberry tea.  Chunky and very red.  It goes down smooth and no doubt deposits some raspberry goodness into my bod.  

 I made many (too many) cookies for our lunch yesterday and everyone ate them, but there IS such a thing as an overabundance of biscuits (that's for my UK buddies).  I used to be a raging cookie monster and I am happy to report that now I can resist eating cookie after cookie.  Maybe my tastebuds don't work as well as they used to!  

 I had this morning's tea in a cup with a saucer.  Simple delights.

 Speaking of simple delights, this sheep skin that Bill bought me is a fun little treat.  I can't quite decide where to put it.  I move it around.  I thought I'd sleep on it, but our bed is already decked out with those Polar Fleece sheets, a flannel-clad comforter and another big fluffy blanket.  Overkill.  It's been so cold that I stay under all that covering, all night!  

 I've been perusing my old Susan Branch books.  I love them so. I can hardly wait for her next book.  I think it's a novel (a first!) and I am hoping it's about her initial move to Martha's Vineyard.  She moved out there all by herself and lived in a cute little house.  When I read the recipe for Potato Heaven I thought, "That SB.  She's a nurturer."  

 I am home alone right now, still in my spotty leopard print jammies (HA!  I don't know why I like animal prints so much!  Kind of weird, right?) The heat is pumping, my iron is on because I like to iron a little every day, no pressure, and I have so many books around me.  Books like to live in a home, I think.  Don't you?  I like a candle burning, a warm tea kettle, the clothes dryer chugging around and around (it's too cold to hang the wash), and quiet. Too much quiet might not be a happy thing, but a little bit spread around sometimes is very nourishing.  

 And all of a sudden I have been eating more soup.  Do you have a favorite soup?  

 So here is the sheep skin in a different locale, my office chair!  Who knows where it will land?

Well, good people, I leave you with a perfect quote by Robert Frost:
"I always entertain great hopes."

LOVE THAT!  Me, too!