Snow and home cooking

When I think back to last January, sunless grey days and low energy cloud my mind. It was miserably cold yet without enough snow to play in. The days blended one into another, and on weekends I had no desire to see what was going on around town because mustering the mental motivation to get out of our place was just too difficult. The first month of 2018 was so much better!

For one thing, it did snow. Several times, and there was quite enough to play in and have fun. It happened enough that I even stopped taking pictures every time it snowed. Jefferson County had a six week holiday because of the snow and icy roads and I made a snow bunny.

Isaac had to clean the snow off his car five days in a row.

We drove around the not bad roads and enjoyed the glowing scenery.

For the month of January, I decided to make a sizable effort to cook more on the weekends. Usually Isaac and I enjoy going out once or twice on the weekends and getting whatever foods we've been craving all week that I don't make at home. Fried chicken, sushi, Vietnamese noodle soup and barbecue are a few of our favorite choices. But just to save money and maybe be a little more healthy, this past month I made sure to include weekends in my weekly grocery list/meal planning. Another incentive for cooking more was the fact that I really wanted to use my Christmas present.

I made green smoothies every weekday morning for breakfast in my fancy new Vitamix blender. My favorite mix is avocado, kale and green grapes. I just plop these on top of vanilla protein powder and water and then dance a little jig while it blends away.

Cooking at home on the weekends also meant that I felt less guilty spending more at the grocery store on things Isaac and I love like steak and avocados (respectively). We indulged a bit, having fancy bacon for Sunday brunch and buying samgyeopsal and all the fixings to have a pretty legitimate Korean barbecue after the snow melted away.

Yes, this January had many great moments and I love this feeling I have that we made them great ourselves. Falling snow and cooking at home are common and insignificant things (even despised by some!) but savoring them made this oft-sluggish month wonderful.