Sleet was slamming against our windows and had been doing so for close to 90 minutes when I started writing this Friday night. It continued for another couple of hours until our driveway and streets were a thick layer of ice.

The first alert about a winter storm said we might receive up to eight inches of snow but then we were told we would get more ice than snow. It appears the report about the ice was right.

This unexpected storm scuttled our plans to go see a big Christmas light display Friday, so we stayed inside with the tree still lit, the fire burning in our woodstove, and an old movie on TV. Actually, we watched three old movies Friday — The Thin Man, Meet Me In St. Louis, and – uh-oh, a mystery one from the 1930s with William Powell that I don’t want to look the name up of now. I’ll do that for tomorrow’s Sunday Bookends post.

Today we are inside again as the leftover from the storm has made travel a little dicey or at least unpredictable. Little Miss has a friend over and they were looking forward to the light display but we feel safer hanging out at home. Luckily we still have a few more days to see  the display.

We might say we are recovering from Christmas, but we really aren’t. Christmas wasn’t too big of a challenge since the kids, husband, and I simply headed over to my parents for pizza and wings on Christmas Eve and Christmas dinner on Christmas. We provided the pizza and wings and the dinner but none of it was too hard to make.

The Husband has more reason to be tired since he worked part of the week. Luckily, he is now off until January 5.

Earlier in the week, The Husband drove our new cat (Cass) to the vet to be neutered, and we went up in the afternoon to pick Cass up. It’s about a 45-minute drive to the clinic. Our son (The Boy) drove up and then we both became a bit overwhelmed with the Christmas traffic in the town we used to live in – which is much bigger than the town we now live in.

The worst was the Walmart parking lot, where we went to wait for a pickup order that included a new iPad for my dad.

I believe social media can be very evil, but Facebook has given my dad a way to connect with friends and family. His old iPad has been dying for a bit, so it was time for a new one for him.

He didn’t exactly act surprised when he opened it but he did act appreciative.

I’m sure he overheard Mom making the suggestion to me a couple of weeks ago. It’s funny because I had a similar idea about that being his gift this year.

My brother and his wife helped with it as well (a lot actually), it was my mom’s idea, and we drove to pick it up after I ordered it, so it was a joint gift.

Back to the cat — he is recovering well from his surgery, but has been desperate to get back outside. He cried and cried and yowled for the first couple of days, but then he got very quiet and kept lying on the floor looking sad as if he had given up hope of ever being let outside again. I decided to let him outside a bit today to cheer him up, and I think he was very happy at first — until he realized how horribly cold it was. He didn’t last long, but I think it was a relief to him to realize he had the freedom to come in and out again.

Now he’s back inside, curled up and happy to be in the warmth as he continues to heal.

When I let the cats out, I try my best not to worry about them being hit by the cars that sometimes fly by our house to take a shortcut to the local garden store.

Sometimes I would prefer to keep our cats inside all of the time, but they love to explore and hunt and mainly stay close to home. I have a feeling they won’t want to be outside much next week since we will have a stretch of days with temps that won’t even reach above 18!

Totally off the subject, but today I watched White Christmas by myself on my laptop and noticed things I don’t normally notice about the movie. For one, I never noticed how when Bing and Rosemary’s characters meet and start to argue, they keep inching closer to each other instead of farther away. The body language is so subtle yet makes it clear that the two feel a pull toward each other but are both stubborn and want to be right.

I noticed a lot more little details this time around that I don’t normally notice, maybe because I had the laptop so close.

I’ve been doing this a lot lately – watching movies on my laptop with a blanket and my heated rice pack. I pull the blanket up over my head and laptop and have a little heated comfort cocoon. The only days I don’t do it are when we have the fire roaring. Then it is too hot. I find this little cocoon very comforting and a chance to recharge mentally. Maybe I need to buy one of those heated igloos that restaurants use so people can sit outside on the patio in the winter. I could just sit in it while my family does whatever they do around me.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. Let me know in the comments how it went or if you received anything special as a gift.

---

If you write book reviews or book-related blog posts, don’t forget that Erin and I host the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Monthly Bookish Blog Party. You can learn more about it here.

On Thursdays, I am part of the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot blog link party. You can find the latest one in the sidebar to the right under recent posts.

I also post a link-up on Sundays for weekly updates about what you are reading, watching, doing, listening to, etc.

---

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.