I LOVE WINTER!

Well, I like the idea of winter more so than the cold temperatures and super high heat bills that we have (heating a 120 year old brick row house is NOT fun).

But, I do like brisk mornings and get your blood flowing--and snuggling under the blankets at night with the ELB.

And drinking hot tea, and making soups and stews in the crockpot. Winter makes me think of my mom. She LOVED LOVED LOVED winter.

The weekend I went to the movies with my friends, there were scattered snow flurries that night. Walking out of Wegmans with the girls, one of them started singing, "Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow". And it hit me really really hard. My mom ALWAYS did that--at the first sign of snow, she would break into song and dance--in the middle of a store aisle, in the parking lot, or even just dancing around the kitchen. When I told my friend that, she just looked at me and said, "see, your mom is always with you". That made me cry.

But anyways, yesterday the ELB and I headed out so that I could fufill my latest obessession--KNITTING! I learned how to knit last year, and made two scarves--but wasn't able to complete them because I didn't know how to FINISH the last row. I finally learned on Friday from a coworker--so I was able to open up both of my pairs of needles--and that deemed a trip to AC Moore for yarn. I got alot of pretty colors (but I'm still a beginner--I'm excited to learn how to purl soon!). I have big knitting dreams. :)

While we were out, we also went to Trader Joes to stock up on the Cinnamon Vanilla tea and Candy Cane teas for the year. I went a little crazy at TJ's--6 boxes of cinnamon vanilla, 4 boxes of candy cane, 4 bags of salted butterscotch caramel balls, red and green lentils, bulger wheat (I saw a recipe that Jamie Oliver made on TV and I wanted to try it), and two jars of my love in a jar--Crunchy cookie butter and cocoa cookie butter. I spent around $50, but that is a years worth of tea bags! And those flavors are only around for Christmas--so we stock up. I also got a box of Harvest flavor tea--and it was good. Of course, the ELB said that it smelled like potpourri--although it tasted pretty good. :)

I decided that after eating the Progresso lentil soup that I can make a better one at home. So that's my new challenge. I spent around $3 for lentils (each bag was about $1.50). So now to find a lentil soup in the crock pot recipe. So, if you have any good lentil soup recipes, feel free to pass them my way.

Otherwise, I'll be spending the winter elbow deep in scarves (because that's all that I know how to make right now).