[Almost] Spring Musings

We are almost to mid-March, and I can't express how excited I am about the hints of the coming spring that we're seeing. In just a couple weeks, it will officially be spring! While it still oscillates from warm to cool right now, we are definitely seeing an upward climb in temperature, and a few of the trees even have some buds on them. I'm thankful to live in a part of the country that tends to have relatively mild winters that don't usually drag out too long. I'm definitely a warm weather kind of girl. That senior year of college dream I had to live in Chicago... yeah, that died pretty quickly when I thought about how long and cold the winters would be!

With the gradually warming weather, Lukas and I are trying to get out more. We are blessed to live close to the foot of a large hill (well, they technically call it a mountain, but it's certainly no mountain by Colorado standards) with a hiking trail up the side. It takes about 30 minutes to climb to the top, where there is a retreat center and a beautiful view of the town. We climbed up the hill yesterday and enjoyed the beautiful weather (warm enough for short sleeves!) and the fresh air.

We also decided to let our kittens (now about one year old, so hardly kittens anymore) explore around outside under supervision yesterday for a bit. They are indoor cats by necessity of our current apartment living situation, but we want them to have some familiarity with the outside in case we eventually live somewhere where they can spend more time outside. Poor Selah was actually scared being outside--she makes a great indoor cat--but Firestorm was as content as could be.

Besides counting down the days until spring is officially here, I have still been enjoying cooking. I find that most of my cooking happens on the weekends. During the week, with my busy full-time job, I just don't usually have time to make anything elaborate. On weekends, however, I often try to pick a more involved meal to cook (like the crockpot chicken tikka masala I tried today) or bake something like granola or muffins for the coming week. I may post some of those recipes soon--let me know if there are any in particular you are interested in seeing.

The treat for this weekend was white chip chocolate cookies--the first time I've tried making them. Nothing too fancy here, just Tollhouse's recipe (found here). Below you'll see a picture of the gooey, yummy, chocolate goodness that came out. I mixed up the recipe a bit, by substituting some of the white chocolate chips for dark chocolate chips--about one cup white chips and 1/2 cup dark chips (I didn't use the full two cups of chips that the recipe called for). So delicious!

This was a bit of an eclectic post, but I wanted to write about a few current simple delights in my life. I want to continue on a lifelong journey of cultivating thankfulness, and writing is a one way for me to do that. Happy almost spring, everyone!