Warm + Cozy

Don’t laugh, but traveling on the mainland totally makes me miss New England.  For real.  Maybe it was the crazy long, arduous journey that I had to take to get from Maui to Baltimore.  Maybe it was the cozy, cloudy Sunday in Kati and Megan’s lovely home in San Francisco.  Maybe it’s the promise of skiing with my dad and brother and snow shoeing with Alicia and Tracey.  Whatever it is, I can’t stop dreaming of a cozy little cottage with down comforters, quilts, and a chicken roasting in the oven.  I have never actually lived in Portland, Maine, but I am currently obsessed with a dreamy notion of that little city on the water.  I’m sure Dave will help me snap out of it when I return, as he has said that I will have to “drag [him] kicking and screaming" off that little island.  He’s pretty good at talking me down when I get a little too impetuous.  

Nothing says “love” like a hand-labeled
jar of wheat germ. 

Anyway, I’m on the East Coast now and I do realize it’s much easier to enjoy winter when you know it will be over in two weeks...so enjoy it, I shall!  It was sad to leave Dave and Porter for the holidays, but Porter can’t travel and Dave is not about to leave the dog for that length of time ever again.  They have Stoneman Steve visiting, so I’m sure they are keeping themselves entertained.  


My first stop on the long journey home was Oakland, where I ate delicious beet salad, grilled peppers, and duck tacos with pomegranate seeds.  YUM!  Kati and Megan whisked me off to a birthday party where there were fun cocktail stations with recipes and ingredients for different things.  I slept like a dead lady that night, snuggled under quilts in their cute guest room.  The next day, we walked in Glen Canyon Park and made crazy amounts of delicious cookies before I headed off to catch the red eye to Ohio, then Baltimore.  

Kati = blurry, cookie-making mamma. 

I planned a whole strategy around landing in the morning and staying up all day so I would quickly get on the correct time zone.  Instead, I landed at 9 a.m., slept from 10-3, and stayed up until about 3 a.m. because I couldn’t sleep.  Mission not accomplished, but I did get to see the amazing lunar eclipse!  Totally worth it.  


Now it’s time to head for the storage bin and dig out my skis, down coat, and other winter treasures.  I also need to find my boxes of cassettes to ship to Maui so I can listen to them in my new/old hot rod station wagon.  Sweeeet!  That car is a whole other story, as I had to spend $650 to replace the fuel pump, just one week after I bought the car.  Grrr.  And it seems like little roaches climb out of the dash board periodically :o(  So gross!!  Roaches definitely make me love winter.  


Anyway...I’m off to the storage bin.  I hope you are having a lovely holiday so far and if you are here, I hope to see you soon!  


Aloha, 
Jen