Snow day

Yesterday came with a warning of bad weather, the kind of bad weather that I look forward to every winter, the kind that requires shovels, and de-icers, and a fire in the fireplace. Still, the morning dawned clear, and doubted the promises of white-outs and sleet. We went about our usual activities, which on Tuesday means venturing out, and by noon the skies had changed their mind, conforming to every meteorological wish. In the mid-afternoon, home from our errand running, I conceded the wait for dry weather and headed to the basement to run on the treadmill, only to come up 18 minutes later and find inch-long icicles hanging on our picnic table, bird feeders, trees, and grill. That was fast. Jon came home early, the library closed ahead of schedule and my evening meeting was cancelled, so we snuggled in and battened down the hatches. Nothing feels more like family than sitting together in a warm house, listening to ice batter the windows and watching snow accumulating quickly, turning the landscape into a sloppy white mess. 

This morning more than half our little village was without power, our birch trees in the back were bent right down to the ground, and had there been school the kids would not have been able to reach the bus steps for all the piles of barely cleared snow in the street. They were kept home, and the joyous giggles of children romping in the snow filled our day. Jon was home, too, and even though he was still working, just having him close is always a nice change in our day. Plus, when he's home for a snow day, lunch break means crazy play in the snow. I have missed winter so much over the past few years, neither the heavy shoveling job this morning nor my sloppy, snowy run this afternoon could diminished my enjoyment of the season.

For the first time in a long time, I am not tired of winter yet.

You say Q, I say winter

Marketing, wild imagination, sheer boredom, whatever the reason, the Weather Channel has certainly added an amount of humor to the dreary winter months with their new naming system for winter storms. I remember a time, so many ages ago in my younger years, when a snow storm was just...winter weather. As for storm "Q", I hear that it did dump oodles of snow on some unsuspecting people, and I will grant that the four or five inches we got over a matter of two hours was rather exhilarating, but they didn't even cancel school.

So I'm wondering, is it possible that the national meteorologists were replaced with regional weathermen from places like South Carolina and Georgia? Because where I'm from, even a foot of snow in a day doesn't warrant a naming system. They just call it winter, and we're glad it's finally around this year.

Healthy eating

The wind has been whipping around here with a force equal to the weather's fickle attitude. Forty degrees and sunny on Saturday, twenty degrees and snowing on Sunday, a high of six degrees today. It buffeted the house loudly enough to wake both Jon and me from a deep sleep in the middle of the night, and a minute later we heard Calvin awake as well. So far, whenever it's cold enough for us to enjoy a fire and marshmallows, it's windy enough that we just can't.

It may be 66 inside, but it's all of 4 outside.

But for all the weather oddities there is no doubt that the month is January when you're perusing the Pinterest boards or the Facebook feed—a majority of links are for exercise plans, healthy eating tips and recipes, or organizational techniques. I scoff at a few of them (why on earth would I put designer wrapping paper on the bottoms of my drawers? I'll never get to see it), but others have been just what we needed to get our own 2013 off to a good start.

Apart from my Pinterest reading, Calvin's growing interest in nutrition and cooking has really kicked our healthy resolution pursuits into high gear. Two weeks ago we sat down with the revised food pyramid given to us by his pediatrician. He drew a plate to demonstrate proper portions and food group distribution, then planned a full day's worth of meals and snacks so as to cover all the general healthy guidelines. It drove home how lazy we've been, particularly with breakfast, lunch, and snack, covering protein, grain, veggie, and fruit, but not getting more specific than that. Cheese and crackers with carrots and berries does not a good lunch make, at least not on a weekly basis.

That first week we revamped our snack habits, aiming to include nuts and fruits and avoid, for the most part, the refined grains we've often fallen back on. Last week we started reworking our entire lunch menu, zeroing in on greens, legumes, and fruits. This week we target our breakfasts, cutting out the standard store-bough (albeit whole grain) bagel, and leaning instead toward more noticeable whole grains, and homemade at that.

I hear, via Pinterest of course, that it takes 21 days for something new to become a habit. I'm not sure that's entirely true—I ran daily for forty-some-odd days between Thanksgiving and New Years and still had no problem last week, while I was down and out with this cold, reverting to my original habit of occasional running. The first day, even the second, was hard, but by this weekend it was more difficult to run than not, my only excuse being that I'm still finding it hard to breathe just sitting on the couch. Still, I'm hoping that our eating habits are another story.

So far, colds notwithstanding, it has been a very healthy new year. Every Sunday has found Calvin and me sitting at the table with a variety of new recipes (thank you Pinterest) and a grocery list, making out a meal and snack plan for the week that is full of bright colors, fresh flavors, and general homemade goodness. During the week he helps me prepare at least two meals from beginning to end, reading recipes, measuring, stirring, cracking eggs, even sometimes cutting. Since two nights of meal preparation usually feed us for at least four, he's helping not only plan, but prepare at least half the week's worth of edibles. This Sunday he helped make a mostly healthy breakfast casserole that we prepared ahead for the coming week. I can practically feel myself being healthier.

Making breakfast oatmeal casserole

Homemade oatmeal casserole

Homemade mac&cheese for lunch, with a large and colorful salad

Makeover tuna salad stuffed avocado

January thaw

This is traditionally the coldest two weeks in our Michigan winter, but here we are right smack in the middle of January with a massive thaw, torrential rains, and balmy mid fifties temperatures two days in a row. Yesterday found us drawing with chalk in the driveway, today found me running nine miles (working on that half-marathon goal) and the guys playing happily in a muddy park.

It would be impossible for me to say that I did not enjoy these two days respite from the cold, but as much as I love our Redwall driveway art (inspired by his new favorite book series), I miss our real January weather. The season showed such promise early on, with actual snow, even! True, tomorrow it will be relatively cold again, but this is not the January I once knew and loved.

Knock my socks off

Friends and family members travel many miles during the holiday season, gathering together as though no time has passed between visits, yet spending hours catching up on all that has been missed over the past week, month, year, even more. There was an eight day stretch last week when we were either out of the house or hosting a party under our own roof every night. Then we left town.

Our travels were mostly local, though, except for the trip north, and today we hopped in the car for a day trip to the west side of the state to see friends who had travelled all the way from the west side of the country. Not exactly meeting in the middle, not even in terms of time spent en route, but we did what we could.

The joy at seeing friends, the type of people who you can not have spoken to for months, even a year, and pick up right where you left off, is always immeasurable. But the joy at having both those friends and snow for a holiday visit? Well knock my socks off.

These are good times.