Home of Travis Robeson, photograph by Bjorn Wallander for Country Living

my windows glow

with winter light

washing everything

with refracted illumination

so white

bright

pure

A cool and elegant light

So very different than the golden rays of autumn

It is quiet - almost stoic.

And so very precious.

Winter is so dark 

Daylight hours short

But the light,

brief and fleeting,

Is so beautiful.

A tiny glimpse of Spring in our perpetual Winter.

The day finally came!  I wore my new wellies this week!  Spring just might be moseying its way around these parts.  I describe spring in Saskatchewan as the “ugliest beautiful”:

Everything’s barren, dirty, muddy, and brown.  And it’s beautiful.  Because it’s not snow.  

It’s ooey gooey, slishy sloshy goodness - which this year I embrace all the more with my new boots!  Once it warms up a bit more I think Little M and I have some puddles to explore. :)

But we’ve still got a looong way to go…

I’m craving white.  Which is ridiculous.  If you were to look out my window right these days you’d see a frozen white world, blanketed in yet more white snow, with a greyish white sky.  And it pretty much makes me want to scream/pull out my hair/cry/run away from Saskatchewan/possibly vomit (but that last one may just be pregnancy).

I think it started with a couple moments spent over at A Country Farmhouse - one of my favourite blogs.  A house that is indeed white and restrained (I don’t think I could ever achieve such beautiful simplicity!)  Then Country Living was nice enough to feature some “decorating with white” tips in my inbox, and I was eating it up.

The prevailing design aesthetic I’m seeing is more and more eclectic, colourful, collected, patterned, and dark.  Black is big, but so are deep navy blues, jade greens, rich purples.  And I really like all of that.  My kitchen is navy blue.  But sweet white… a sparse, sunlit room regaled in white does something for my soul.  Probably the opposite of what staring out at the -35 degree white deepfreeze outside does to my soul.  Strange.

I think the white interior makes me think of breezy beachside cottages adorned in beadboard and slipcovered chairs.  Or a sunny farmhouse filled with mismatched white platters and soup tureens, and stacks of old quilts ready to be pulled outside for a picnic or building a fort.  

So here’s some white.  Hope you enjoy it too. :)

secondwaltz:

Vicki Lund

So loving sequins this winter.  

Remember how said my love for yellow is restricted to month of January?  Well, it’s leaked into February this year.  This front page of Etsy totally captivated me with its sunny mellow yellow!

I’m usually not into all the winter-hating around me.  I try to make the best of it.  Appreciate the beauty of soft, sparkling snow.  Enjoy a crisp breath of frigid fresh air.  Have an excuse to cuddle up and do nothing and go nowhere.

But today, I’m longing for Spring.

Today I pretended that the sound of a snowblower outside was actually a lawn mower.

Right now I’m listening to a recording of rain falling (Thanks, Suzy), while denying the actual snow flying outside my window. 

I keep looking at my pretty turquoise wellies and they tell me “We’re awesome.  you should wear us.”  I agree, but when I try to explain the extremely cold temperatures we’ve had lately (seriously, freaking cold.) they just don’t understand.  After all, they’re just boots.

I’m glancing at my new jogging stroller and envisioning the lakeside route I’ll run as soon as it’s reasonable to be outside that long with a toddler (and in Saskatchewan I think 2 degrees Celsius is reasonable…right?  Bundled up, of course.)

I’m imagining pussy willows and tulips, fresh dirt and green grass, robins and rainstorms.

*sigh*

I’m not so much hating winter as loving spring.  Right?