snow at dusk

 it was a perfect evening for a hot chocolate . . 

i don't know why lately i can't seem to get enough of snow and winter. there's a part of me that doesn't want to open up to spring and summer. maybe there's too much change in my life these days and i just want to bundle up and hibernate.

packing morgana's box and a myriad of other things

today was the final day for getting morgana's box together. it's been sitting on the window seat for over a month, stuck in "i don't want to spend the money to send this package overseas" limbo. it was rescued by stefan, who is traveling to austria on saturday, and offered to take it in an empty suitcase. i believe once he dumps the box with morgana, he will be filling the suitcase with ski equipment and then returning home. a fair exchange!

 chanda and i made a run to the chocolate bar for chocolate gifts to spread throughout the box, as if it needed any extra filler . . ! along the way we ran past the newly erected christmas tree stand, which smelled wonderfully piney.

 picking out the goodies . . 

 it was a rainy and slushy day. a noreaster was blowing through but we didn't get much snow on this side of the river.

after packing up the box and watching greg leave with it to bring to stefan at his office (i can't believe it's finally on it's way) i met janet at chocolate bar for a hot chocolate . .

since it was so crowded in the cafe, we took them back to her house and sat and knitted on our projects for awhile.

janet's been studying fibonacci numbers with her two youngest boys and enjoyed showing me the spiral in her brussel sprout plant . . it starts small but gets bigger and bigger as it spirals out.

back at home i began making creamed celery; my contribution to tomorrow's thanksgiving meal at my sister's house.

 who is this consulting her phone amidst a busy countertop of cooking utensils and food?

ahhh! it's morgana . . busy very late at night in austria, making pumpkin pie for her american thanksgiving meal tomorrow. good luck, morgana! i look forward to hearing about it when we skype. (it looks as if she has also put together an apple pie, and i see a nice looking hand mixer.)

monday goings on

 we've had such beautiful weather these past few days. there's always a breeze, it doesn't go over 82 degrees, and the humidity has been down. i stayed home and tried to set up an ebay seller's list, but haven't figured out the paypal thing yet. i was also waiting for an email from chanda saying that she was happily ensconced at the ballet school. she finally called on the telephone. for some reason she's unable to email . . we ended up successfully skyping, though that just felt lucky. hopefully, we'll be lucky again tomorrow too.

 korrina had a friend, who had a friend, who needed a hair model. today she went for the cut and for color. i think it looks really nice! i love the color.

 i finally broke into my box of chocolates from morgana that she gave me for my birthday.

 and korrina and i tried to skype with morgana who is now in bordeaux, france, but the connection was very bad. we then tried to face-time on greg's phone, but it still wasn't very good. she ended up sending a short email note . . but it was very late there so she didn't have time to write a lot. it sounds like all is going well but she has a ton of guitar practicing to do.

 dinner tonight with greg and korrina was kale salad and bratwurst.

 then greg and i went up to the high line for a walk and to see the sunset (and also to have la new yorkina pops . . cucumber lime and passion fruit).

firetail mountain fleece, persicaria amplexicaulis.

hoary mountain mint, pycnanthemum incanum.

 rosemary willow tree . . 

 . . salax eleagnos.

 a bur oak, like our witchy tree . . 

 quercus macrocarpa.

a skybridge over 15th street, used by private companies today. it dates back to 1930 and connected the nabisco factory to the nabisco offices across the street.

(as i'm writing this, greg has been watching pet videos online, and also someone's travel video about driving along a 2000 foot drop in the himalayas . . he keeps laughing so i have to go and watch each one):

this one is my favorite with gus the bulldog.

early morning tea

i was out early this morning to have tea with my friends carol and janet.

everyone was walking to work and to school and all the flowers were in bloom.

but, thankfully, it was still cool enough for a hot chocolate.

sharing cultures

 solveig and haakon found one of our favorite bookstores on their walk around the neighborhood today and bought several books for their granddaughters. 

 solveig's journal from norway . . 

outside of chocolate bar. they took the subway to the airtrain/jfk this evening, and are now on their way home. we had a wonderful time visiting together. they're my brother-in-law's family and i stayed with solveig's sister in oslo years ago when i was traveling through europe.

 while they had gone for a walk to see washington square park, chanda and morgana finished up their castle reports, and worked on math and latin.

when is cold too cold?

 there were errands i wanted to run today, but i didn't because it was 10 degrees outside. it felt too cold to go for a walk. however, morgana, chanda and i did manage to get out to the river park.

 the snow is frosty and breaks easily. it's not good for snowballs.

 warming up at chocolate bar . . (korrina had off from work today . . i know she was happy she didn't have to go out in the cold . . )

 we read "the starry night" chapter in gombrich's a little history of the world, and then opened up the arabian nights and read up to "the story of the first old man and the hind."

 m and c worked on the knitting projects they got for christmas . . 

 morgana worked on her sock (the yarn is knitpicks' stroll handpainted, a beautiful yarn!) . . 

and chanda worked on her shell shawlette with madelinetosh pashmina.