A Nice, Calm Day Here in the Apartment

Hey guys! Amazing news! It snowed last night. Wanna see?

 

That's the corner of my balcony, all sparkley and white. The funny thing is that I didn't even realize it was snowing until I read posts about it on facebook. D and I try to keep the blinds closed after sundown because I get kind of sad and gloomy when it gets dark, especially in the winter. We do make a point of having them wide open during the day. D graciously bought me an early Yule gift of a therapy lamp, but on sunny days I'd rather take advantage of natural sunlight.

The first real sign of proper winter came this afternoon though. If you don't already know, I babysit two little girls most weekdays, aged 2 and 4. Today they came over at two in the afternoon and they both had on matching scarves and hats. They looked very stylish! The Sign of Winter was this: When Tatum (aged 2) came into my house she instantly slipped and fell on her butt on the tile in front of the door because of the snow on her shoes, and within minutes there was snow tracked in all over my living room, despite telling them to leave their shoes at the door. How does that happen anyway? No level of careful shoe removal can prevent it. Slippery shoes and sudden, startlingly cold wet spots on the carpet, real signs of winter's arrival!

Yesterday D and I received a late wedding gift from my Aunt Butler (OMG thankyousomuch). Judging by the slightly battle-worn envelope there were complications in it's delivery. 100 dollars! Longish story short; I bought boots.

Kinda poor picture quality, apologies. Aren't they amazing!? I've been wanting knee-high boots for a couple winters now but never had the money to get them. These were from Payless ShoeSource and were about $50 dollars. There were kinda similar ones at Famous Footwear, but those were over a hundred bucks. Even WITH the gift money, I couldn't justify spending that much on shoes. I think these ones are even better anyway. They have a nice, thick heel that's about two inches, rounded toes that make my feet look adorably small, and a little room in the calves so I can wear them over skinny jeans, but not so loose that they look silly over tights.

Everything is better with new shoes. I admit that I wore them while vacuuming today.

All in all I have had a nice relaxing couple of days. The girls were well behaved and talked my ear off about being excited for Christmas (I am under strict orders from their parents not to mention anything that would lead them to doubt the existence of Santa Claus. As if I would anyway. Christmas died a little when Santa no longer lived. Let them believe!)

I got the kitchen fever today after D fixed the dishwasher. I've got acorn squash with butter and brown sugar in the oven right now and snickerdoodle dough chilling in the fridge. I've found, lately, that I love baking. It makes my house smell warm and cozy and Dalin is always so stoked to come home to cookies. I want to get my mom's flapjack recipe and also try and make some miniature tea cakes. =D

 

Other than that, there's not a whole lot going on. Got a bit more done on my yellow socks today:

 

I love taking knitting/tea pictures.

 

And, before I go, I just took this picture (literally, like ten seconds ago) Max likes to help me blog. Haha

Bye now!