Calling Oats

Did you know it's National Oatmeal Month? Well, it is. Algernon informed me the other day (as he informs me about any food related holiday) and I'm determined to celebrate it to the fullest because I love oatmeal. I'll eat a bowl of hot oatmeal every morning and make my special oatmeal chocolate chip cookies once a week. I'll let Yvette give me an oatmeal facial mask. I'll try an oatmeal meatloaf (I'm actually only a maybe on that one). I'll bring up oatmeal in casual conversation and do my part to spread the word.

Because everyone could use a little more oat in their life.

Could you use a little more oat in your life?

-rfb






Winter Wonders

In between Christmas and New Year's I spent a lot of time snug as a bug in a rug, watching snow storms and winter days from the comfort of my neighborhood. Inside I baked bread in my new bread maker (a wonderful gift from Algernon). I organized my records alphabetically according to the year they were released (a serious undertaking). I started Crime and Punishment (and stopped reading Crime and Punishment... I'll leave that one to Magnus).

And for fresh air outside my home, Yvette and I took lots of walks together. We walked through the park across the street and we walked up and down city streets. In the still mornings we felt snow from the trees above lightly drift down onto our heads and beaks as we passed below. In the frosty evenings we felt the salt on the sidewalks crunch underneath our boots and we navigated across icy spots with only once or twice almost-slipping. We cleared my walkway noticing our breath in the great white puffs and at all hours we could hear snow truck shovels scrapping snow off the roads.

I think it is more work to exist in the winter then it is in the warmer months, but it can be such invigorating work if you let it.

I hope you let it.

-rfb