East Coast snow!

light snow, mild, temps minus 3

A beautiful, gentle day here...in contrast to what those of you along the east coast have last night and today. My God - 18 inches in places. Some places more. New York city getting a foot and a half. It must have been absolute chaos.

Our day was very quiet. I went off to be Pina-ed. She's our neighbour and runs an exercise class in Sutton which Michael and I have started taking again. After a 5 year hiatus. Have you noticed that some days, when exercising, it's not terribly difficult and other days you can barely lift your legs? I had the latter today. Torture. Pinatized. I might need therapy. Again.

But wow, does it feel good when you stop.

Popped into the grocery store (resisted the chips and gummis) then home just in time to meet Kirk. He and Jane are helping us design the renovation. We have a solarium at the end of our kitchen which was never the best quality and has not improved with age. So now it's like having an open window in our kitchen. And when it's minus 34 as it was Monday, that is not a good thing.

So we've decided to re-do it, and the kitchen. So Kirk came by to discuss it, and then our contractor came and we all walked around discussing options.

Now, I'm not extravagant. Mostly because I hate being in debt. If we can't pay it off quickly, it doesn't happen. So the poor contractor kept having to re-adjust the ideas to try to fit our budget. But my theory is that anyone can do a great house if you have a million dollars. The creativity comes in trying to achieve something beautiful and useful on a modest budget.

that's what we're trying to achieve. We'll see how I feel when the cardboard kitchen cabinets arrive, and the sod floor.

then in the afternoon we got caught up on bits and pieces - wrote the February newsletter for instance - and replied to emails.

Hope those of you along the east coast are safe and have managed to dig out. We're thinking of you.