How to keep pink cheeks in the winter time...la ti dah.

Holy hooligans, it's been a while! Winter has settled in here in the Twin Cities. The sky today is perfectly white, the trees are naked but for the pines and a few stubborn maples, and the ground is brown and frozen. Get out of the city, you might mistake yourself for living in the tundra.

To survive Minnesota winters requires one to mindfully nurture a special resilience and odd admiration for the bitter cold. It's a skill that I work on every year. What keeps me smiling through the winters? Mostly small things...

1. My favorite coats: big pockets, high collars, horn buttons, elegant embroidery. It sounds trite, but lovely clothes can brighten my day! A nice coat is well worth the dollar.

2. Getting outside: I try to spend at least thirty minutes outside each day. A walk with Rachel, walking to the bus stop, going running (if it's above 20 degrees), walking on my lunch break at work. Once you get moving...the cold is a little more bearable.

3. Planning dinners with friends and dates with my boyfriend: Being with the people I love is the fastest way to warm up a room! Cheesy but true. Just last night, we invited a lovely pair of friends over for dinner, wine, and yuker (yuchre? yucher? Alas, it's a favorite Minnesota card game.)

4. If I didn't get a good walk or run outside, I go to the gym. I absolutely must work up a sweat to keep those endorphins sparking.

5. Drinking lot of tea, working on craft projects (like the enormous scarf I started two years ago...one day Mike will have a nice gift!), and reading reading reading with Rachel curled up next to me. Not a bad way to spend winter evenings.

6. Plan a trip to somewhere tropical! Oh boy! Central America!

I promise more soon from this tundra front...especially recipes. Lately, our dinner menus have been sorta unoriginal. However, we're having a holiday party in a few weeks so I need to get cracking on the menu and decor planning!