The Cottage on the Hill

This is our first "over a footer" snowstorm of this winter season. When I was growing up, these weren't very newsworthy. 2 feet of snow was more typical with blizzards of 3-4 feet in places being big news. Regardless, having everything covered in a fresh layer of snow is simply beautiful and peaceful. I love looking out of my living room window at the old one-room schoolhouse across the street.  No matter the season, it is a beautiful site. In two more months there will be yellow daffodils around the foundation. Today, it gets a blanket of snow. This blog post is linked at Coast Charm.

Photo Credits With terrible weather and illness, we have missed the unofficial end of summer. Even the weather has changed. Throughout the neighborhood, I am beginning to smell wafts of wood smoke. Leaves are beginning to change and the garden browns. Today, I removed the air conditioner and put socks on my cold feet. Still feeling the affects of quite an illness, which has been pretty much narrowed down to a contaminated well from the overflow of rains recently, I've been dreaming of a hearth to curl up in front of. I love that they make those electric or gel fireplaces now so anyone can enjoy a hearth. Some day I'll buy one. In the meantime, knitting is starting to sound good again. Just sitting and knitting. I can't knit worth beans, but I can at least make squares and scarves and it is relaxing. What's your favorite curl up in an Autumn evening activity? Oh...and cinnamon rolls! Autumn beckons cinnamon rolls and apple cider donuts from a local orchard! Oh...

Monday, I saw my first robin of spring. Ironically, it was the earliest I've EVER seen a robin AND I saw him during a snowstorm! The groundhog said spring would be early this year. The robin said spring would be early this year. I'm still buried under at least a foot of snow!

I'm looking forward to oranges. I usually only buy them when on sale, in season at the grocery stores, so it has been a while. Soon....soon.

Hubby and I like to have most of our Christmas shopping done before Black Friday. That way we can sit back, relax and actually enjoy December. This year I plan on doing a good deal of my shopping at www.melissaanddoug.com and other such toy makers. USA made, educational, wooden toys are what I'm after. My children have toys from the whole spectrum and I've found that the simplest ones entertain them the most and the plastic ones often get ignored. The noisy ones usually end up getting thrown across the room (and not by me, I promise). There are some beautiful manipulatives out there. I'm also going to toss out most of the cheap plastic and paperboard toy foods they got last year because the pieces are small enough to choke on and they've been torn and smooshed and thrown about. Melissa and Doug have some lovely wooden sets of healthy foods. The plastic set was mostly fast food and junk food. I'm searching, researching and choosing carefully this year and...