Daily 5 - Day 124

Today's Daily "5":

1. Surviving a bit of a crazy and odd Monday.
   
2. A new "last minute lasagna" recipe experiment for supper (uses ravioli stuffed with cheese instead of lasagna noodles) that was really tasty.
3. Weather that warmed up a bit, making the train ride and walk home a lot less painful than the ride and walk this morning.
4. Unexpectedly getting my least favorite household "chore" (grocery shopping) of the week out of the way tonight because I realized I needed to drive my car for a little while, just to warm it up in this cold.
5. A grocery shopping trip that was really quick and smooth, and almost enjoyable.
6. Knowing that grocery shopping unexpectedly tonight means that I have an entire, unscheduled free evening tomorrow night.
   
7. Driving an old car that may have it's quirks, but starts like a charm in these ridiculous temperatures, without being plugged in at night.
8. wrapping a simple birthday gift and card for a friend, as well as a Christmas card for her and her husband in preparation for mailing tomorrow.
9. finding several more recipes that all look delicious and can be made with the same base sugar cookie dough.
10. enjoying a few games on facebook for bits and pieces of the evening.
    

Pause, mid-afternoon

It's been a busy day.

I'm pausing just for a moment.

I just checked the weather outside. Including wind-chill, it's a full 10 degrees warmer than it was when I was walking this morning. That is very good news for the walk at the end of this day.

I've been having odd sorts of days lately.

I feel like I haven't been saying very much of substance here, talking mostly about the weather, or some of the minutiae of daily life.

Truth is that the things going on in and around me are somewhat deep and unsettling, and that though some are impacting me immensely, I can't really talk about them here without betraying the confidences of others.

Instead of writing substantive thoughts, I've been spending a lot of time thinking and praying and sitting in the quiet with questions and concerns.

Advent does this to me sometimes. This silencing and waiting. This year it simply seems compounded by the things that must be held in confidence.

So, for the moment, I'm going to keep talking about the weather, and the daily minutiae of life.

Cold Monday Thoughts

I'm wearing at least two layers of clothing over my entire body. Three and four layers in some cases.

The walk this morning was brutal. You know it's cold when the idea that it will warm up to -22C today makes me cheerful. It means the walk home will be slightly less painful. Or at least that's the hope.

I'm having a Monday.

I have my hair down today, which is fine, except that I wore a toque and a face wrap to get here without dying of cold this morning. Which would both also be fine, if I'd remembered to throw a hairbrush into my purse. As it is, I'll just have to live with somewhat unruly hair today.

I also forgot to bring business appropriate shoes. Ah well, tromping around the office in my boots won't hurt anything, and at least my feet are fairly warm. It's not like I have any business meetings today that I need to be really professionally dressed for.

And with that, there are a myriad of little things waiting for my attention. More thoughts to come later.