Kittens From The Dark Side: Where Is Winter?

This has been a very warm, very un-snowy winter, and it's a bit sad!

We have had lots of fog (love it!)

I hope we still get some snow and chilly temperatures before real spring comes, but the trees and plants think it's spring already!

One of my Christmas presents from Greg (and our cat babies, past and present) was an Etsy gift card. I used it for these beautiful chandelier earrings and I've been wearing them almost every day!

I've been looking for a safe (for reef and me!), vegan, sustainably packaged daily spf for years now without any luck, but I finally found one! I've been wearing it for a couple of months now every day and it's great! Not too thick, not too white, a bit glowy, but not oily. I'm impressed. It's not cheap, but it's lasting quite a while and it's GOOD.

find it here

In the little snow we've had, I made a heart.

Not enough for a snow person!

I love the little ice designs on the windows!

One fun new thing I've done lately is make PICKLES!

Most pickles in the store have ingredients that I don't wish to consume, things that are not healthy, such as polysorbate 80, natural flavors (which are not typically very natural!), emulsifiers (thickeners, which often aren't safe for people with Crohn's), and sometimes colorings (definitely turmeric for coloring, which is a healthy thing, but not necessarily for me).

The pickles turned out better than I expected, as good as the expensive healthiest ones I've found! Hooray!

The final product:

I tried two different recipes with two kinds of cucumbers.

I've found some good things thrifting lately, too.

A beautiful ceramic pitcher (holding utensils).

Food storage containers:

A cute little tea cup with a thumb dent:

A little pot with an air hole (currently holding extra buttons on my dresser in the closet):

Bins (holding toys instead of zipper bags!):

This cute wood and bronze duck stuff holder:

One part for rings, one part for earrings, one part for my every day bracelet!

A wooden tissue box holder (now in the guest bedroom):

The frosty sunrises are beautiful even if there isn't any snow.

I've been feeling quite energetic, and once in a while, I'll see a new area I need to clean.

I saw gunk in the oven vent on the door. This oven is probably original to the house and I haven't cleaned these little gills since we moved in.

Before:

AFTER!

The sun in the morning made it look like a huge spider was inside my lamp - eek!

I love our huge windows and the golden glow that comes into the house.

I love the way the sunrise makes the clouds pink.

Another home thing that was bothering me was this cabinet in the kitchen. It was mostly entertaining supplies like pie dishes, special silverware, tablecloths, and trays/platters. It was messy.

Now it's beautifully tidy!

Our nieces came and spent the night with us a couple of weekends ago, and the house was all tidy, so I took some photos to document how things look right now.

Main bedroom:

Guest bedroom:

We went to pick them up and got to snuggle their cats a bit! This is Legolas, who is a HUGE Main Coon. He's still a baby, but he's already very large!

Cora and Esme wanted to go browse at Goodwill - I couldn't be happier that they love thrifting, too (though they just like the interesting stock and good prices!) Esme spent a lot of time exploring the stuffed animals (with Greg's help!)

Cora likes finding things that might be helpful to the kids I help at church who have special needs! She had to test some of them out.

Here's a bunch of stuff for my church kids!

I also found these gorgeous original paintings of the same pond in fall and winter. I LOVE THESE PAINTINGS!

Winter:

Fall:

I went back a number of times to look for spring and summer, but didn't find them.

Cora paid attention when I told her I love ceramics that are different shades of blue and that I always look for handmade pieces, especially with signatures on the bottom! She found these for me with her sharp eyes and I LOVE THEM. They're perfect and they look great together on the dining room table.

I told the girls they could each have $5 to spend at Goodwill or Target.

Cora found this beautiful painted rock . . . with a bell inside! It sounds very peaceful and calming and it's nice to hold.

Cora also bought a slippery tube that is really hard to hold onto!

Esme bought this cute bunny, she thought she would name Caramel.

Plus some Altoids (strawberry flavor):

And a keyboard! She likes to play teacher and shop owner and business lady, so she obviously needs to type things!

We decided to cover some strawberries and crunched up rice cakes with chocolate when we got home!

Esme told me that I have a lot of toys . . . I don't think they mind!

For dinner, we taste tested non-chicken nuggets!

The winner was the Impossible Foods endangered species version.

We also had veggies, potato wedges, and a big fruit salad.

Allistair wanted to be part of dinner, and he even got on Esme's lap!

There was more toy city expansion . . .

And then we watched some School House Rock and then it was bedtime!

In the morning, we attempted pink heart-shaped pancakes!

The heart-shaped forms did not work (the batter stuck), but we liked the pretty pink color of the pancakes!

They were less pink once they were cooked, so I have tried other options for the pink color. These were colored with cherries, which didn't add enough PINK, but which did taste really good in there!