It's Freezing!

Oh Michigan, it is definitely winter now. Temps below zero or hovering right above are keeping this little family in the house!

We have been spared thus far though the more severe winter weather that other parts of the country are experiencing however. Not sure how that happened but comparatively, it could be worse! Usually on cold days I am so industrious, bustling about, making bread, or baking something in the oven, or cleaning and organizing places in the house that I usually bypass due to time constraints. Today though, I am being a bit lazy. A little bit dreamy. I want to woolgather in my wooly socks. I want to huddle under blankets with my family and books and multiple cups of tea and coffee and hot chocolate. It is a cold that has made me snuggly.

This year, a year I plan on being more mindful and paying more attention to my own inner needs, I am going to go with that feeling.

If I want to blog and not clean up the last of the detritus from Christmas, I will.

If I want to play around on Pinterest, without planning on making anything from it, I will.

If I want to sit around in my yoga pants and super warm cabin socks, drinking from my fat round belly mug, I will.

And yeah, there are the things I will need to do. Like entertain my almost two year old when he gets up from his nap. Feed him. Feed me. Feed my husband. The husband actually made us all a breakfast of delicious French toast this morning, so I will reciprocate with dinner. I am thinking soup, but then in the winter, I pretty much always think soup, it's my favorite food group. Tonight I foresee a bubbling pot of tortellini white bean soup on the stove, with a loaf of crusty bread unmade by me, and perhaps a glass of wine, all in my future. Until then, I plan on just hanging out here, letting the day slowly unwind itself and me along with it.

Not everyone stays inside on snow days. In fact, before Punk we used to snow hike all the time. Now we mostly stay in, especially on super cold days like today. Maybe when he gets a little bigger I won't be so worried, but he is still just so little. My friend Kelly is not afraid of the snow either. In fact, he rather relishes it, tromping about the early hours taking photos of the winter kissed landscaped, or whiles away afternoons in the snow taking some gorgeous photos. 

Here are two of my favorites, with two very different subjects, but still both absolutely stunning.

I love this photo so much. The composition, the focus, the bright colors, the vivid white, and even the echo of brown and texture from her hood to the nest. It's stunning.

I love this one too. The stillness yet the awareness, the energy you feel lurking beneath the calm, and the calm itself. The colors again, are perfect echoes from the horse to the trees to the snowy landscape.

Kelly's photos run the gamut from sweet little baby photo shoots to sweeping landscapes to urban gritty photos to photos of the human form. You can check his photos out here. Please note that some photos include nudes, tastefully done. If you like what you see, he also has a GoFundMe right now to replace his equipment. Kelly is the consummate artist, and chooses not to sell his photos for large amounts of money, but rather sells them for whatever people want to offer him, in an effort to put art in the hands of more people. You can check out an article about that endeavor here, if you are interested.

So what about you? What do you do on cold, wintry days?