Today the house smells like chili and quinoa and chocolate coconut oatmeal cookies. A sleepy labrador and a grumpy cat share the sofa. Each has a cushion to themselves, with the center cushion as a buffer. If I come sit in between them, they both snuggle up tight to me until they are touching - which is fine with them as long as they don't look.
It's nearly the end of December and I'm already dreaming about gardening and what I'm going to plant next year. I guess this strikes most Northerners around February, but seeing as this has already been more winter than I've seen in my life, I think I can be excused for being a keener. As the days were growing shorter and shorter, I felt like the dark was closing in on me...now I feel myself lightening with the sun.
