Thank goodness for Elisabeth: her F.I.G. Collective project is not only keeping my brain primed to find things to be grateful for this month, but getting me to blog when I feel completely sapped of post ideas.
Here are seven things I’ve been especially thankful for over the past week.
Sunday, February 15: Carla has the day off tomorrow (for President’s Day), so the three of us plus my parents left town for a mini ski getaway. We had great snow, great weather, and a lot of fun. I adore skiing, and I am so grateful to be able to do something I love, with the people I love.
The morning started out foggy but the snow was perfect and no one was there!
Monday, February 16: The grocery store still has a TON of beautiful Valentine’s Day floral arrangements – and they’re all half off! I snapped up this cute little planter.
Tuesday, February 17: Even though we hire a cat sitter to come take care of the kitty twice a day while we’re out of town, he acts as though we have abandoned him for years to fend for himself. He demonstrates his relief at our return through days of intense and unending purrs and Velcro-ing himself to our sides, and I’m not going lie: I love it.
Who knew purring could be so accusatory?
Wednesday, February 18: Guess what arrived in the mail today?!?! What a thrill to be able to experience Nicole’s writing in book form, and to have my own copy of her first novel for my home library.
Thursday, February 19: I had my annual physical with my doctor today. I am grateful that all my labs are normal. I am also grateful that my doctor listens to me and that she was happy to refill prescriptions and submit orders for my first ever colonoscopy. Am I looking forward to this procedure? Hell no. But I have a family history of colon cancer and I am grateful that I’ll be able to get some insights into my intestinal health.
I really would like to decline, but I am NOT GOING TO.
Friday, February 20: For the first time in A WEEK, I sleep through the entire night without waking up. I have been seeing many of the wee hours of the morning lately, and when I’m in a spate of poor sleep it’s easy to feel like it will always be that way. I’m so thankful that I am still capable of sleeping six hours in a row.
Saturday, February 21: Today is the bat mitzvah of a family friend, and it was such a joy to witness her confidence and satisfaction as she led the service in Hebrew. I’ve known this kiddo for more than half a decade now, and as I watched her recite the Torah portion of the service, I could see her little second-grade face superimposed over the face of the beautiful young woman she’s become. Being able to watch Carla grow up and into herself is, of course, such a gift, but I am surprised by how moving it is to watch her friends grow up alongside her. The entire day was joyful and celebratory and I am so thankful to have been part of it.
The cat is wondering why I am using him as a prop.
That’s all I’ve got for you today, Internet. Snow is falling quietly, the cat is waiting for me to play with him, my family is still asleep. I hope you found many things that filled your heart with gratitude and joy this week, and that the week ahead is similarly full.
Once again, our dear Elisabeth is leading us in a daily practice of gratitude with her F.I.G. Collective this month. While I try to think of – and often speak aloud – the things I am grateful for every day, it’s helpful to have an additional reason to do so.
(It’s also nice to have other people with whom to share my objects of gratitude. Carla bears the brunt of my exclamations over our surroundings, and is weary of my gratitude that we live in such a beautiful place. “I know, the snow, I get it, you say it every day,” she said the other day practically the second I opened my mouth.) (We do live in a beautiful place, and I am grateful.)
Sunday, February 1: Sleep – According to my sleep app, I am making progress in terms of getting better sleep. I do not feel less tired or less sleepy, but I have to trust that my body is doing something with the more consistent sleep. One of these days, I’m going to open my eyes and feel rested. Right?
This is the most Deep Sleep I have gotten since I began tracking my sleep.
Monday, February 2: Moon – Today we had a fantastic view of the Snow Moon on the drive to school. My photography skills leave a lot to be desired, but rest assured that the enormous glowing moon against a lavender sunrise was magical.
Wednesday, February 3: Cookies – A friend who is out of commission lately mentioned that she could use a home-cooked meal, so I made her dinner. And cookies, of course. I may have made a double batch so we could have a few cookies at home.
Thursday, February 4: Writing Time – My husband’s work schedule and my daughter’s activities schedule have been matching up quite nicely lately. This allows my husband to pick her up from school, which means I only have one hour in the car and I get extra writing time!
Writing companion.
Friday, February 5: Book – Julie gave me a heads up that Writers & Lovers is related to one of my favorite January reads, Heart the Lover, and it was available on Libby, and it was delightful, and I devoured it in a couple of days.
Saturday, February 6: Lunch – Today I got to have lunch with my parents! My mom made delicious soup and the three of us sat around her table and chatted for three hours. It was lovely.
I didn’t take a photo at lunch because we were too busy gabbing, so here’s a stand-in photo.
Sunday, February 7: Cat – Lenny continues to fill my days with entertainment and joy.
This has been my kid’s second five-day school week since the beginning of 2026, which seems wrong in all sorts of ways. It has also had the effect of feeling incredibly long. Don’t worry – we don’t have another five-day school week until March.
Five random things on my mind today.
Another Mystery
I have a tea subscription that supposedly arrived Wednesday. I got the confirmation email, complete with a photo of the box in my mailbox. The confirmation email, strangely, said “Your package was left near the front door or porch.” even though my mailbox is near the street and not near my front door. Whatever, the driver must have checked the wrong box, the photo clearly shows it in my mailbox.
I did not check my email or the mail on Wednesday, which feels like a crucial point. But yesterday, when I finally read the confirmation email, I went to the mailbox and retrieved a whole pile of magazines and letters and bills and junk mail. But no box. Neither was the box on our front porch, nor was it near the backdoor. I interrogated my family members, but neither of them had retrieved a box. I looked in the cupboard where I normally keep my tea; nothing. WHERE IS MY TEA? My theory is that the mailman opened the box to put in Thursday’s mail, was unable to fit it securely around the box, and removed the box temporarily to put the rest of the mail in. Then he forgot about the box and drove away with it. I’m hoping he returns the box today, but I suppose we’ll see.
Palm Update
I have been babying my palm trees (which did not adjust well to moving indoors this winter) and they both have some new growth. One of them is still struggling – some of the new growth has already turned brown, and it’s not putting out as many new shoots as the other. But the other one seems almost happy? It would possibly be more happy if the cat didn’t so thoroughly enjoy nibbling on its leaves. I really hope I can keep them alive until it warms up enough for them to move back into the sunroom. They liked it much better out there.
Everything Falls Apart
When it snows, it dumps, right? Well, first the freezer in our garage refrigerator died, taking along with it a ton of food.
Then my oven started acting up, which is something it does periodically, and about which I have complained extensively before. (It doesn’t seem to want to heat to the correct temperature. However, an oven repair guy came out to check it – along with the other, more expensive oven, which somehow has the same problem – and after three hours and $300 told me both ovens are just fine and perhaps it is user error.) I made these cookies (which are just as delicious in February as they are in November) on Wednesday and the oven refused to heat to 350 degrees. It just got stuck at 340. But it was still in preheating mode. I am assuming, with no actual knowledge whatsoever, that the preheating mode injects extra heat into the oven, and that’s why my cookies got quite crisp around the edges before they were supposed to be done. (They were still scrumptious.) I wrote this off to me not allowing the oven enough time to come up to temperature. Then, later that night, I preheated the oven to 400 for dinner, left it alone… and completely forgot about it because the “I’m done preheating” beep never happened. An hour later, I remembered that I hadn’t put anything into the oven, and hurried into the kitchen to find that the oven was still preheating and still at 395. Okay, fine. I will turn it off and try again. Then it got stuck at 370 until I finally gave up and used the air fryer. This morning, however, I set it to 350 to reheat a breakfast sandwich, and it worked exactly as it was supposed to. Either it was having an off day on Wednesday and is back to full strength, or it only heats to 350.
After I dropped off Carla, I went into the basement to walk on the treadmill for awhile. But when I powered it on, it said it was paused. And no amount of pressing the pause button, the stop / start button, powering it off and back on, or unplugging it and plugging it back in made the pause screen go away. Obviously, none of these things is dire. We are fortunate in that we have both a second freezer and a second oven, which allows us to meet our freezing and baking needs. The garage fridge is pretty old – we bought it in 2012. And the oven is probably 10 to 15 years old (and seemed to have never once been cleaned before we moved in, so who knows what kind of maintenance it had). The treadmill is even older. My in-laws bought it when they lived in Europe back in the early aughts. They brought it back to the States with them in 2005ish, and then gave it to us in the early 2010s. It has served long and hard.
To recap, these losses are not dire and were going to happen sometime anyway. But I hadn’t anticipated that they would happen so close together. As we use all three of these appliances daily, we will be replacing them. Good times.
Avocados
I am not particularly interested in the Super Bowl this year, but my husband is excited about making a seven layer dip. I do not care for seven layer dip, but I will make the guacamole and eat plenty of that. Our grocery store had a nice sale on avocados – $1 apiece – so I bought a few. And then I went to Trader Joe’s and they had ENORMOUS avocados for $1.49 apiece. I had to buy two, just to see if they are as good as the normal little guys. I will try to remember to report back.
Cat Curiosity
My cat continues to be the best cat. He exemplifies the whole “cats are curious” personality type, and is constantly investigating everything. The exterminator came the other day to check our mouse bait and he said, of Lenny, “He’s a nosy little guy, isn’t he?” Yes. Lenny has to be where the action is, and he needs to be apprised of anyone entering the house and insists on doing a thorough inspection of their shoes and any bags they might bring.
He is, of course, wildly curious about Outside. Any time a door opens, our security system chimes, and that’s the cue for Lenny to beeline to the door and try to sneak out. We usually keep the laundry room door closed, so that it acts as a sort of airlock between the kitchen and the garage. He knows that we often disappear when we go into the laundry room, and that we appear through that door at the end of the day. As soon as the door chimes, he takes up a spot near the door – usually on the floor just inside the kitchen, but sometimes on the counter right next to the laundry room door. Then he greets us with a deep stretch and some little chirpy meows.
This week, he’s taken to hiding in the laundry room while we’re in there putting our shoes and coats on. He is a very good hider. So good, in fact, that one day he was unable to extricate himself from his hiding place. Can you find him? Slide the photo to the left to reveal his location.
That’s all I have for today. It’s snowing here, once again. I hope you are warm and cozy and that you have a restful weekend.
