It isn’t very pretty, but it tastes good. I used the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day recipe because it is a simple recipe. Simple is what my lazy day was calling for. I also made a favorite soup recipe in my Instant Pot – chicken tortilla soup – another extremely simple but tasty recipe.

I binge-watched an entire Netflix limited series yesterday too, His & Hers. It was a good thriller with twists and turns that keep you guessing, and has a totally surprising ending. If you are staying home today and enjoy that style of tv show, give it a try and let me know what you think of it.

On my couch, wrapped in fleece and blankets and sipping coffee this morning, I’m waiting to see what this day will bring. I’ve downloaded an extra book to my Kindle ahead of finishing the current one I’m reading, just in case the power goes out. I figure if it does go out, at least I can read. I found a Kindle sale on The Housemaid – a book that has a lot of buzz around it right now due to being recently made into a movie. I prefer to read the book before I see a movie – I like to make my own version of it in my mind before I see Hollywood’s version. The book I’m currently reading, The Last Thing He Told Me, I just learned has a sequel that was published a couple weeks ago – might have to grab that too! – and it is a series on Apple TV. Hmm, might have to subscribe for a little while after I finish reading. Are you reading anything interesting right now?

My mind is also drifting to a warmer place in my future. I’m heading back to Florida for my February break this year. I’m hoping to be doing something like this three weeks from now, enjoying a cold beverage on a warm beach. Probably not beer since it is around 9:30 in the morning while I’m typing, but I wouldn’t be opposed to a mimosa or Bloody Mary. Interesting side note about the beer in my hand: that is the same brewery that originated in Maine, that I’ve visited a couple times. They have a brew pub on Treasure Island in Florida where I bought the koozie and the beer.

This was the view of my backyard on Monday, after last weekend’s snow. By tomorrow at this time I expect to see much more snow out there. In the time since I began this meandering post, the snow has started falling and I got the phone call about there being no school tomorrow.

I’ll wrap this post up for now, while I cross my fingers that my power stays on. If you are with me in the path of this storm, stay safe and warm.

The entrance to the path I follow had only been walked by a few at the time I arrived. Cross-country skiers made a bit of an indent in the snow, so I followed along in their tracks.

I’ve shown you this pond several times in this blog, but each season, each visit, reveals another nuance, and a touch of tranquility.

The quality of light and the presence of clouds changed as I continued my journey to the top of the dam, made a bit more arduous by the presence of deeper snow underfoot.

When I reached the top, I paused to take a shot of another view I’ve featured many times, but this time with sticky snow clinging to all of the branches below.

At this point in my walk, a somewhat decent cell signal returns, so I took a moment to send a selfie to some friends, and to show them that I actually remembered to bring the Canon with me on this walk.

This is the snowy view across the top of the dam. I walked all the way across, and sometimes I travel the diagonal path down the dam that you can see in this photo I took from the bottom:

I considered it, and I had my trekking poles with me, but I thought better of it since it was kind of slippery out today. Over where you can see the railings above the spillway, the route back to the path can be a little tricky to navigate without snow covered rocks, so I erred on the side of caution and just turned around and went back across the top of the dam.

On my walk back down toward the pond, sunlight was playing on the water, but I had trouble trying to capture it through the branches in my view. By the time I got back into a clearer area, the water sparkles had passed, but I did manage to get a nice reflection of the sun on the water.

While I was taking this photo, subtle movement out of the corner of my eye caught my attention. A single Canada goose was quietly paddling, poking in the water looking for food.

Normally, I wouldn’t have given this bird a moment’s notice. There are so many of them around here we think of them as nuisances. They have a tendency to be quite aggressive when there are babies, and in certain places you have to be careful not to step in their poop! But this time, the moment felt different. It was alone, as I was, just going about its business, as I was, with a light spray of snow blowing across its face, as it was across mine. It seemed peaceful, as I was. It continued on its journey, as did I.

During my winter break from school, my little group of friends and I got out for a hike in Wilbraham, right after snow had fallen the previous night. We built up some heat, so by the time we reached this vista for a picture we were unzipping or taking our coats off.

A second reason to get out has been presented to us by our friend Mike over at MLCreations. Today he published some inspiration for theme days for photography. Go over to Mike’s place and read his post and get some inspiration yourself. He invites us to participate as we wish. The sun was out today, and it was about 40 degrees out, so I took myself out just for a little neighborhood walk. Monson became a town in 1775 and there are still quite a few historic buildings around, including the original library, built in 1882. I often walk by it on my neighborhood walks, and today, with Mike’s ideas in mind, I stopped and took a picture of this door:

I thought it was a unique looking structure. You can’t go into the library through this door anymore, but the original granite library is connected to the more modern looking addition to the library that was built in 1990. This is my contribution to Mike’s theme, Door Sunday.

I’ve got 8506 steps today as of my typing of this post. So thanks to Jane and Mike for helping me get moving!

In March, my friend and I took a late winter/early spring walk at one of my regular haunts, Conant Brook Dam, and he claimed I was so desperate to see some wildlife that I was trying to manifest it, hence the name of that post Manifesting Wildlife. He said I was just seeing a stick, but it in fact turned out to be, in my words at the moment, a “big ass turtle.” This photo isn’t anything technically spectacular, but it brought me joy.

On our trip to Tennessee in April, I had a moment of awe as a bald eagle soared right in front of me. I was unprepared for the moment and the shot I got is far from technically good, but it brings back that good memory.

My vacation in Maine this year had its ups and downs. The downs would definitely be my visit to the ER and my big screw up on ISO for my attempted Milky Way photography. But, unexpectedly, I learned that my iPhone does a pretty nice job of night photography if you hold very still, and I got this photo:

July brought a morning of contentment that I spent biking, then walking at Quabbin Reservoir. My favorite picture of that day was this one, with a hummingbird that appeared at the last second:

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know I have a special love of hummingbirds – so much so that I have one tattooed above my hip.

A camping trip in August allowed me to photograph a “bucket list bird”, one that I have wanted to see in person. I had the lucky experience of a common loon swimming not too far from my kayak:

In late summer, Jane, Nicole and I took a couple of dinner picnic hikes, an idea that I hope we will do some more of in 2026. At the summit of Mt. Holyoke, we were met with the unexpected view of a hot air balloon drifting along the Connecticut River:

Labor Day weekend was another camping trip, that was unfortunately disrupted by some very inconsiderate camping neighbors. We made the best of our time in Vermont however. A picture I took kind of “offhand” just looking out at the night sky and trying to tune out the rudeness of people, turned out to be one of my favorites from that trip:

Some of the best experiences turn out to be the unplanned ones. I spent a lot of time at the beach this summer, but one of the best days was a very unexpected one in October. Very out of character for New England, it was forecast to be 80 degrees and my companion and I headed to York Beach in Maine. I took lots of pictures this day and it became my contribution to Walktober, hosted this year by Dawn at Change is Hard. After a wonderful day, we decided not to drive home and stayed in a beachfront hotel for the night. The following morning I enjoyed a gorgeous beach sunrise and another walk. This photo, after the sunrise colors had begun to fade but the sun still creating some beautiful light, was my favorite from the bunch:

In an attempt to capture some foliage before it fell from the trees, I returned to Goat Rock in Hampden. But it wasn’t the view from the peak that produced my favorite shot, it was one from the hike up where I was taken aback by beautiful red and pink trees and bushes:

On an evening that I had no idea was the night before the full moon, beautiful light glimpsed from my bedroom window drew me outside, which led to me being able to get this shot of November’s Beaver Moon:

A very happy new year to you. I hope that you will find unexpected joys and beauty in 2026.

After a busy day baking and prepping food and bagging Christmas gifts, this was my Christmas Eve: popcorn, wine, a Christmas movie on Netflix and my feet up! Ahhhhhh….

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate. Looking forward to seeing you around the blogosphere in the New Year.

This morning, Sunday, a very different scene has taken over:

We are only supposed to get an inch or two, just enough to make it slippery on the roads. It is still snowing as of this moment. I’m curious what this New England winter has in store for us.

We enjoyed some child-like fun when we made some simple tin foil Christmas ornaments sitting at a table with colorful sharpies – I wish I’d remembered to take a picture of these. Our art wasn’t beautiful but we laughed and drank our drinks while we did that. Next stop was up to the observatory on a very cold night with the roof open to the sky, to peer at craters on the moon through the museum’s huge, old telescope, built in the 1960’s.

Next we went on to see Jurassic Gingerbread, which was this year’s theme of the museum’s annual gingerbread house building contest. These bakers were so very creative! You could vote for your favorites in three categories: youth, family, and adult.

This was my vote for the family category, “Life, um …frosts a Way” – in reference of course to the famous quote from the movie Jurassic Park.

In the adult category, I had a good laugh at, and voted for “Juroffice Holiday Party”:

On the buffet table, there are selections for omnivores (pizza), carnivores (chicken legs) and herbivores (salad). I loved the pizza delivery dinosaur, and the dinos in their cubicles!

My favorite of all was not the most elaborate display, but my choice in the youth category, Tyrannosaurus Wrecks:

I delighted in the pun of the title, and had a great laugh at the dinosaur eating a gingerbread man and the flattened characters – including Santa! – left behind in the wake of the dino’s footsteps! As I laughed with mirth, Jane said to me, “you just love the carnage!” LOL!!

We continued our stroll through other displays in the museum, including a newly built aquarium area, and the Hasbro Gameland Exhibit, honoring the fact that Milton Bradley began in Springfield in 1860. Again we played like children with the giant sized Simon game, balancing challenges and a pedaling game that made balls travel through a metal maze. After that we wandered into the section with history of Springfield, and I found a very familiar looking display:

My very first job as a teenager was in a Friendly’s restaurant in my hometown of Wilbraham, MA, known to Massachusetts Turnpike travelers as “Home of Friendly’s”. S. Prestly Blake, founder of the Friendly’s chain, was raised in Springfield, and the ice cream plant still operates in Wilbraham. I wore that ugly uniform in my days working there.

Before we left for the evening, Nicole made sure we had our picture taken with The Grinch in the Grinch’s Grotto:

Nicole to the left of the Grinch, Wayne, her fiance, lounging in front, Jane to his right, and me to the right of the Grinch.

Thanks, Nicole, for the invitation to this very fun night at the museum!

A daisy, right?

Definitely a lily, day or otherwise

Bellflower, I believe

I think this is a miniature member of the sunflower family.

This last one I’ll include even though it is in a pot on my plant shelf. This little Christmas cactus has bloomed with regularity throughout the year since I purchased it a year ago. It puts forth such effort from its tiny pot and it always impresses me! I’ve never re-potted it since it seems so happy as it is. I took this shot today.

Anyone more knowledgeable than me in the species here, please enlighten me in the comments!

Orchids from the show I attended in February at the New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill. (I wrote about this show in this post.)

One perfect rose at Arlington National Cemetery from my whirlwind DC visit with the 8th graders in May

Rosa ragusa from my trip to Camden, Maine

Coneflowers from my morning at Quabbin Reservoir.

Thank you to Cathy and Eliza for the idea to share some color on this snowy day!