Hello! Well I am a little late, sharing about the winter in the middle of July. (And now it is October and I still haven’t finished writing this!!!) What can I say, the snow melted, the sun came out and I did not want look back at the cold long pandemic winter. I knew I would have to get around to it eventually. Since I didn’t have a large selection of photos from the winter (not many occasions to pull out the film camera in the cold and snow) I decided to combine winter with spring. 

One of the big things that happened right before Christmas is that Elliott took his first steps! It has been so fun watching him get more and more confident (and now running all over the place!) The cat’s life has been pretty much downhill from then on. Sorry Bobby. There were also lots of sled rides and walks with the stroller so that the cabin fever didn’t set in. 

We celebrated Christmas in a little home we rented for a few days, close to my parents’ house. We had a little holiday gathering in my parents’ back yard on Christmas eve to exchange presents. And then we celebrated on the 25th, just the 3 of us with some movies and a big homemade vegetarian Christmas dinner. I made sausage rolls,  It was hard to celebrate without our whole family but with the pandemic situation, we didn’t think it was safe to have any indoor gatherings. 

We missed out on another year of visiting the sugar shack but luckily we were able to have a meal from one of the local ones and warm up all the dishes at home. It was not the same experience but it was the closest we could get and we were grateful to be able to support a local business. (And have a tasty meal!) For easter, I wanted to give Elliott a little egg hunt without buying anything plastic or feeding him candy or chocolate. So with the help of a few online tutorials, I tried my hand at some natural dyes. I bought some wooden eggs from a little store in our neighbourhood and used some foods around the house to make a few different dyes. I had been saving onion skins to use one day, used some red cabbage from the fridge and some turmeric from the pantry. With the extra dye from the onions, I also dyed a stained cotton dress I had thrifted last year and some of Elliott’s white onesies.

We started picnicking again in April and also started a new routine of going to the playground every morning before nap. At the beginning of spring, I was reading Julia Child’s book about her life in France. I found it in one of the little free book exchange boxes around the city. I was feeling very envious of her morning routine with her coffee and a croissant outside one of her favourite coffee shops before her classes at the cordon bleu started later in the day. I wanted to live that morning routine too but had a toddler and was cooped up all winter. Finally I created my own by picking up a coffee and an occasional baked item on my way to the playground and then sitting on a bench while Elliott played. Over time (and with vaccines rising and infection numbers dropping) I felt comfortable with him playing with other kids and our morning routine often became the highlight of our day. And if I was able to have a conversation with another adult, I’d come home feeling more human. 

I started working on my balcony garden and we had more and more visits with friends and family since we could spend time outdoors together. And on mother’s day I got my first vaccine! We definitely felt better about having a little more “normal” life after that. The spring definitely felt like a new start of sorts, everyone was just so happy to be outside and feeling a little bit more hopeful about the future.