A Challenge.

Happy Saturday! We've made a change this year to our Christmas decor that created a challenge. As dh is now working from home full time, all the day, every day, his "office" is currently the turret on the south side of the cottage. It's not technically an "office" and we're trying to figure out if this spot will be permanent or if we have to make some changes in our home to support this new set up. The turret, also known as the music room and the Christmas Tree room is a favorite spot in the cottage. But now we had a dilemma to work on. Where, oh where will the Christmas Tree go? Short of moving his office furniture to another location, the short term solution we came up with included moving the vintage carriage upstairs, then move a chair in the family room to the "office" and buy a smaller tree to fit the smaller space that could work. So we moved the carriage, then the chair, swept, vacuumed and washed the floor. On Friday, we went in to town to buy a new tree @ 60% off. We found a version of a "pencil tree" with lights, and a cashmere feel on all the branches. 

We ended up getting the very last one in our region and grinned all the way home. Gently unpacked the box and within a few minutes, just like that, we had a new tree in our cottage to decorate. It's 7 feet tall, so about the same height as our other tree. But so much thinner. Definitely less space that it occupies for now. There was another couple at the store doing the same thing. The "office", turret, music room gets to stay intact and the Christmas Tree is still in a spot that is in our view from all angles, at all times. The challenge will be decorating it as we have soooooo many beautiful ornaments. The plan is to choose our favorites and then the rest to go on the other small trees that we'll be placing around the cottage. Though today is dh's birthday, our plan is to do some decorating inside today while it's sunny but cool with the wind outside. We hope to work on the exterior of the cottage tomorrow, putting up garland and our inflatables. The sun will still be out but the wind will have gone away for the day. Inside decorating is first on the list.

We need to "fluff out" the tree and decorate.

But what do you think of our new acquisition?

~ Chy

My Favorites.

I have a love hate relationship with food. You may have heard me say this before. Born with undiagnosed reflux (discovered when I was in my 40's), an undiagnosed hiatal hernia (same time line) and severe life threatening food allergies, eating became painful and scary, and for decades, something I dreaded. I battled anorexia and it still blows my mind to this day that we were able to carry 4 good sized babies to term, though we've lost 8 precious little ones and now I often wonder if being too underweight was part of the problem. Over time, once I was diagnosed, we began to experiment with food to get me to a point of being able to eat without pain, and to achieve a healthier weight. Now, most of the time, I enjoy eating. And have some favorite foods that I could eat every day .... and sometimes do! 

My favorites included soft pasta with alfredo sauce, baked ham with coleslaw and roasted veggies, soups, yogurt with berries, grilled cheese sandwiches (with pickles), chicken stir fry and anything that is easy to chew and swallow that I'm not allergic to. Love casseroles with chicken, broccoli, cheese and rice. Mmmm. And lobster. Who knew all those years ago that lobster would be a food I can tolerate. Do you have favorite foods you love to eat? Share away if you wish.

Namaste on this sunny Friday morning.

~ Chy