“Snudge,” our 17th century word-of-the-day, means “to remain snug and quiet, to nestle” … the olden-days word for hygge! MUSICA! And we are deep in the throes of it aren’t we girlfriends? My old house on Martha’s Vineyard has been withstanding below-zero wind chills lately. Just like so many of yours! Eeek! But I’m lucky enough to know what that means!💞 I don’t think I’ll ever have to give up any of the seasons, I have been witness to them all, and remember them so well.💝
Was it all a dream? I feel so lucky to have lived the other side of the story for 45 years . . . in a place where the storms came in with a vengeance, where the electricity went out and trees blew down and porches and driveways needed to be shoveled… and the whole world turned white overnight and we couldn’t wait to get up in the morning!
For people in states without snow storms, this might look like a heart attack in the making… a giant pain! But look at his face! That is the face of a happy man throwing a shovelful of snow at his wife on the other side of the window, watching him with her camera!
Winter gave us a fairy tale! We loved watching those big fat flakes float slowly out of the sky! A fantastic invention! Perfectly creative, maximum pleasure.
We had spectacular little views of cardinals, nuthatches, chickadees, and woodpeckers, just outside the kitchen window . . .💝
But they would all run away when Jack appeared!
We had “frosted window panes,” just like they sing about in Christmas songs, which inspired even more beauty with candle lighting . . .
There is really nothing like a snow day,
out for a walk in the cleanest chilly ocean air, then home for grilled cheese sandwiches and bean soup.
. . . or a blueberry corncake breakfast . . . we had a gas stove, we could even cook in candlelight! What’s a little snow storm ~ it gives so much more than it takes.💘 MUSICA . . .
LIFE IS ART.
We were always so excited when we heard the first snow was coming!!! Especially me! I had a whole California, no-snow childhood to make up for! How many times did the electricity go out so I had to write my books or paint in candle and firelight? So many! So quiet on those days, me dressed in lots of sweaters, even a hat, with just the sound of the snow plow out front. I felt like Louisa May Alcott when that happened. That’s just NOT a bad thing! Always inspiring that dreaming thing…
It’s why I feel so lucky to have experienced this. Opening the door to blasts of cold air as our friends 
would trek in for winter dinner parties, everyone pink cheeked and lit in candlelight and firelight. I even suggested in my first Christmas book that everyone should rent a house to have Christmas in the snow at least once in their lives and watch the snowflakes drift down. That was advice from this born-and-raised California girl in 1990! That’s what I had already learned! It was positively magical!
XXX
See? Snowstorms never stopped us … life went on, they just made everything more exciting!
Oh, by the way, our realtor just found this turn-of-the-century photo of our old house at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum! A much clearer image than any we had, including that crazy tower in the back which is no longer there! You remember, our old house is still for sale … but guess what? We signed an offer! We’re waiting now to sign the Purchase and Sale; and then we’ll have the Closing. If it all goes through, which is NOT FOR SURE, the Closing will happen in March. Keeping an open mind and not putting all my eggs in one basket! What makes it especially wonderful, if it happens, is that they ARE the perfect people for our house, they have young children who will get to grow up in that fairy tale!👏 They will love my neighborhood of wonderful people, and vice versa, so I do this: 🙏.
You might think, after seeing these photos, that we are crazy to sell our wonderful house. But no matter, I will always be able to relive it all . . . Traversing from room to room in candlelight . . . I could feel all the winters that came before and all the generations who’ve lived in our 1849 house, before there was electricity and how it was for them. And once again, thinking about things, even little things, like their socks ~ suddenly so grateful to have a washing machine and that I don’t have to make my own soap. All this luv-lee history to leave behind for the new people. They don’t even know about that yet!♥️
Winter was the time for dreaming. If you go back in time to my Archives, which are all in the column on the right, you can see it all, 45 years of four seasons in New England, celebrated to the nth degree!
Here is one very good reason I will never forget. I just finished my 2027 wall calendar . . . my best ever if I do say so myself, because the entire thing is dedicated to my old house, to every season and so many memories, filled with watercolors and photographs, it’s a “Goodbye My Love and Thank You For Everything” Calendar and it will be here in the spring! Anyone who has ever loved a house will understand . . .
And now that I can see and feel both sides of the country, I almost feel guilty to show our winter, like as if I would hurt someone’s feelings. But I KNOW how much fun everyone is having in the snow! And this is what it is here! Not a reality any of us can rise above. It is what it is, and it’s winter here too, just a different kind, but definitely winter. Some of our trees don’t even have leaves on them!😱
I see that while many in California, and other fair-weather states might not truly understand how anyone could enjoy the “glory” of winter, the stormy states don’t really understand that we have totally cozy winters here too …
. . . there is excellent sleeping weather, with flannel jammies and chilly 40º nights (it’s just not freezing, so we get to have the windows open); there’s no snow, no nor’easters, we save a lot of 
money on mittens, hand warmers, and hats . . . but we get heavy rain that turns our winter cold and grey, which seems to make “green,” and we cuddle under my Grandma’s nap blankets to watch TV. Sometimes it’s mild enough that we can sit outside on the porch. Like last night. And I can garden almost every day. I’ll TAKE it!💝
XXXI
Instead of sledding, we listen to our water fountain, and watch the birds as the sun goes down. Winter in California is still magic ~ the magic was always here, but I do think we brought some of it with us, and if we went back to the island, where I learned about magic in the first place, it would come there too.💞
So what’s been going on? . . . Well, I did my regular January thing, transferred my anniversaries and birthdays to my new calendar. Boy do we have plans! This is going to be a MASSIVE year for us. It is my 
40th year of book writing … and I’m thinking of all kinds of ways to celebrate! My new Christmas book is coming, we’re reprinting old books, hopefully selling the house, replanting the wildflower orchard, having our Diane Keaton party and a cross-country book tour, planning a visit to the island, shutting down the Studio, moving everything (keeping my blog, the books, and my relationship with Kellee). Keeping healthy, walking and exercise, because NEXT year, I turn 80 😂🤣🤣🥳 (something so funny about that . . . it can’t be real!), and we are rewarding ourselves with more excitement… wait till you hear… I put everything on the calendar so we get it all done, because . . .
Joe and I traveled up to San Anselmo before New Years to see my darling girlfriend Elizabeth and she gave me this new cup warmer with a candle inside. I love it and have used it for my tea every day since!💞
Me and Elizabeth… we had such a wonderful visit … tea and cake, walks in woods, visits to olive farms and bee stores . . .⭐️⭐️⭐️
. . . with Elizabeth and her wonderful best friends who I’ve gotten to know over the years, and love ALMOST as much as Elizabeth does💘, that’s Cathy on the left, then E., then her cousin Diana, then Mimi, and then me. So much fun, starting with a visit to a famous hamburger stand, cheeseburgers, fries and shakes! We did it all!👏 Note, California girls wear sweaters too!
When we got home I put away all our Christmas decorations and redecorated my new mantle . . . if you didn’t see my last post, Joe made me a mantle for Christmas! We don’t have a fireplace here, but I needed a mantle (for obvious reasons) ~ so he made me one! I still laugh and giggle when I pass it. It was just what the Doctor ordered for this house, not just for Christmas, but year round! That painting was over our fireplace on the Vineyard, so it feels normal!
Things are how they’ve always been. . . I get up early every morning, followed by Jack. I brush my teeth, throw on a sweater . . .
and this is what I see when I come out of the bedroom, yes, we kept our outside Christmas lights. They are even on a timer, that’s how serious we are.
I turn on the lamps, hug the heck out of my little petty pet; we turn on the furnace to take off the chill, make hot tea and put cat food in a bowl, then we roll around on the floor doing our exercises. We 
make Joe his tea and take it to him, and then we go to work in my studio, writing my new Christmas Book ~ it is so changed from the old one (which has actually been out of print for at least 15 years😲) … this one will be all new, the only exception is that I’m keeping a few of the old recipes and some of the old art, for old times sake … but we’ve had lots of Christmas’s since 1990 when I wrote the first one! I have more to say!
Writing this new book is making me so happy!!! Here’s the cover, and down at the bottom you see what it’s all about!
The world has been in such a mess, but because of YOU and this BOOK, I get to LIVE in the Christmas spirit 
every day ~ it’s such a gift, and YOU my darling girls, are the reason I’m doing it. I hope you’ll love it.💞Jack is not one bit impressed, he is asleep behind my computer right now, snoring oh-so-softly.
We watch the sun coming up, and are excited to see the luv-lee new shadows slashing across the walls as the days slowly get longer.♥️
Look at this light! I have always loved shadows and light, reflections of light. The tall windows in our house reflect into the mirrored walls, and back and forth across the room it goes! Turns out this place was made to catch the light and bring it inside. I love to play with that. We draped the trees in twinkle lights and colored lights just to bring magic inside.
I took this photo through the living room window out to the picket fence garden, you can see the reflection of the lamp on the mantle behind me. Isn’t that just crazy?
Same window, different lamp, and the pink reflection of the setting sun. . . .
And this one, through the back window to the sunrise, through the tree with twinkle lights and lanterns we put up for Joe’s Birthday, and the reflection of the lamp on the mantle behind me . . .
But did you notice the cat shadow in the chair??? Wait till you see how fitting that is:
Joe found the chairs at a yard sale, $15 each, deal, brought them home, took one in, left the doors open on the van, I came out to get the other one, and HELLO Simon! Simon impressing his shadow into the chair. Basking in the evening sunshine. King of the world. Those chairs were only at the house about 5 minutes before they were kitty blessed!
But loooook! He loves getting into the car the minute we open the doors! He is the love-cat, that’s all he wants to do. Give love, and get loved.
Anyway, I finally decided that the way to decorate this place is how I WANT it to be in the end, and forget about how it IS. Here’s a pretty nice corner that probably doesn’t go all that well with the kitchen, so far anyway. But we have plans.👏 Bringing our New England house home to California, still celebrating with the doily mentality after all these years, nothing really changed when we moved here, except more kitties, smaller house, bigger garden, and like maybe 20 to 30 degrees! And hanging clothes on the line year-round!
So, here comes February, and I have lots of Valentines for you to choose from, all free, just print them out … there’s even a little envelope you can make! The perfect thing to do while snudging!💝
Look how cute! And now, get ready for really fun first-time news! We are having a big blowout Valentine’s Girlfriends Sale starting TODAY and going to February 14th, to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the publication of my first book in 1986, Heart of the Home!!! Almost everything in our webstore is on sale at 50% off, not kidding . . . from stickers, to tea and cups, to soaps and jewelry, and prints . . . and MORE! You’ll see your discount at checkout! FIRST COME FIRST SERVED, until they last.💝 From me to you with L O V E.
Let’s make her ⬇️ a bookmark too, shall we?
The story of my life . . . :
Well darlings here I go! Time to get walking! Hope you are all having a wonderful day, no matter where you are! Have fun! Snudge in and get cozy! Keep in touch! I’m not going anywhere, don’t worry! Just making work life a little easier and a little smaller (after I finish this book!), so the PLAY part can get a little Bigger! ❌⭕️❌⭕️❌⭕️❌⭕️
