winter days

I have had these pictures lined up ready to go for several weeks now and too many other things have claimed my attention instead. But this record-keeping goes on, and my efforts to keep track of our days are rewarded by seeing these photos of how our time has been spent.
We have ample time for our lessons these days as we have no extra-curricular activities until spring comes. Kate is seeing her OT once a month now and has started with an SLP for speech every two weeks. She happily spends one morning a week with dear friends who take her sledding and dog-walking and feed her lunch and give her bubble baths. It is a gift that they generously provide for our family.

January did not bring many sunny days, but February has made up for it both in sun and snow. I have been doing a ton of online reading, and some pre-reading for Seth's Term 2 books, but hardly any of my shelf books and only a few library reads. In the evenings, I have opted for watching British television movies and series.
I just finished watching three seasons of something I found unexpected at the library called The House of Eliott which follows two fashion-designing sisters and their love stories in London in the 20's. It was very enjoyable, although the final season didn't wrap up the storyline very well as the show was unexpectedly canceled by the BBC. But I would watch it again, even knowing that the end hangs a bit. I don't usually watch this much television, preferring to read, study or catch up on Instagram or Pinterest in the evenings, but I have enjoyed the stories so much, I feel little guilt.

I have ordered some of this year's garden seeds from my usual place, Terra Edibles, here in Ontario.
I always order the Bronze Arrowhead lettuce, yellow wax beans, yellow zucchini and peas. This year, I also added in some Chantenay Carrots to try. I have been growing rainbow carrots, but decided to go back to traditional long orange carrots as my soil gets loamier and looser each year.
I plan to buy all my cucumber and tomato plants this year and not grow them from seed at all. I did save pea and bean seeds from my garden, but I don't trust them yet, so I bought extra just in case. I will try my saved marigold and zinnia seeds but won't feel as let down if they turn out to be duds.

Next week is the Annual Book Sale at a local church. I think this might be my tenth year going. Our family library owes most of its existence to this book sale, not counting our theology books and other non-fiction titles. But our classics and all ages of children's books have been found by combing through the boxes and tables at this sale. I actually dreamt the other night about being at the sale and I gasped when I realized that I had missed going to the children's classics shelf; I hurried back into that room and then woke up without seeing what was on the shelves.
I would say that falls pretty darn close to a nightmare.

This teetering stack was from 2012.

P.S. Yes, you may have noticed that we finally replaced our old black leather couch with a new pull-out bed one from Ikea. It came in two boxes, one of which weighed a ton that we managed to get into our SUV with bungee cords to hold the back gate down. (It was a little breezy on the way home but we just cranked the heat a little bit more. January cold can't beat a new couch purchase!)
Then with a small handtruck and a very strong husband, he and I traipsed it all the way to our front door and wrangled it inside the house, and finally trucked the old one out to the curb for garbage night with help from two pajama-clad kids. (The other pajama-clad kid was already fast asleep in her bottom bunk and none the wiser about what was happening. I put her on the new couch in the dark the next morning and she realized right away it felt different. The look on her face when I turned on the light was so great.)
Next on the purchase list is a new dining table, and yes, it might be from Ikea too.