Project 75 degrees and other unimportant things

Yesterday was one of those dark, snowy days where you kind of felt like somehow December had sneaked into February. I didn't much care for it.

On the bright side, it is February (not December) and we're actually closer to March now than we are to the first day of February. Last week, Andy and I spent a few minutes rearranging the woodpile and realized we have more firewood than we thought. Some of the wood has been waiting patiently to be burned since summer 2010 and that means we're running out of time before the wood gets "punky" (i.e. rotting, wet, hard to burn and doesn't release much heat). Since we'll hopefully receive a fresh delivery of firewood next month, we've launched "Project 75 degrees" to use up all of the older firewood. If the temperature in the cabin falls below 75 degrees, that means it's time to throw another piece of wood in the stove! Throw on your surf shorts and flip-flops and come visit! ;)

I might as well say it here to hold myself accountable, but I've decided to give up chocolate for Lent. I haven't successfully given up anything for Lent since I was 18 and since I'm not Catholic, I'm hardly required to give anything up. But I kind of like the willpower challenge, as well as the reminder that we can live perfectly happy lives without certain luxuries in our lives. As a result, I've been drinking copious amounts of mint tea, in lieu of cocoa, to trick my palette into thinking I've had a treat. My cousin gave up beer for Lent and the two of us have never looked forward to Sundays so much in our lives.

This past week, I planned out six different meals to make for supper. I made a grand total of three of those meals. Not because we went out to eat or someone fell ill, but because we ended up with enough leftovers to last us the whole week from those three meals. This never happens.  Despite my best planning for leftovers, inevitably all leftovers get demolished for lunch (or breakfast if Andy was especially fond of it) before they can ever make their way to the dinner table the next night. We must be eating less because despite both and Andy and I feel like we're eating perfectly normal sized meals three times a day, our fridge has been overflowing with leftovers. Apparently we have become the people who say, "Oh, just a little piece."