As much as I love Valentine’s Day, I haven’t really done anything festive for it since I was a kid and my aunt threw parties dripping in pink, white, and red décor, chocolate candy, and homemade “lovebugs.”
I don’t mind though, I’m still very much in a hermit-y time of my life — I’m happy on my own, and don’t feel like sharing my time with many other people.
But there is one thing that I do enjoy doing for this fleeting February 14th holiday.
And that’s make a pink cake.
January is officially over, and Punxsutawney Phil has predicted six more weeks of winter (i.e. he saw his shadow). Although his history of predictions is ✨questionable✨, he may be right this year, because there are still plenty of low temps and chances of snow on our forecast.
January has been a month of intense creativity for me. Work has been extremely slow (as per usual in January), and although I’m currently very poor, I’m always happiest when I’m not just sitting at my desk painting all day.
Although pet portraits are a great staple for me, I’m hoping for some new opportunities to come my way in this new year.
The weather forecast was right (despite our doubts): winter storm Albatross arrived, and we woke up to a winter wonderland on January 19th.
The temps plummeted during this storm, so although the snow started off heavy and wet, the majority of it was dry and powdery — the perfect combination to coat the landscape in 5-6″ of pristine white ❄
January 18th was the last day that we got truly decent temps. The morning was warm*, and rays of sunlight were shining through the rising mist over the stonewall.
Very New England-core✨
*a winter’s “warm”, of course
although I despise what the invasive bittersweet plant does (and do my very best to not let it produce berries on my property), its winter display (in my grampa’s yard) is always impressive
Everyone who lives somewhere where it snows knows that there’s snow…and there’s
❄snow❄
Riley Mae tied some branches onto the bird feeder by the kitchen window; she set it up for photo opportunities, and it works perfectly because the birds will even come to the feeder while I’m sitting on the glider just a couple feet away from it. This is a little dark-eyed junco (left) and a house finch (right) a.k.a a Hollywood Finch
A collection of photos taken back in September during our little vacation down by the coast 🌊
weather at the end of September is really a coin toss ’round here, so we were pretty lucky to get decent temps, even if we did get quite a bit of clouds and a few passing showers
It’s been a while since I’ve done a #fitcheck, but it seems that I’m quite deeply entrenched in my natural-world-aesthetic era, and so this vintage Talbot cardigan was a Christmas gift to myself 🍄
When I fall in love with something online that is either a) expensive, or b) not easy to return (or sometimes both), I do a good ol’ Google search on the product.
I paste the picture of the item into the search bar and I scan the world wide web to find other retailers, product pics, or pictures from other people who’ve purchased it.
a.k.a. I do my research.
I bought this cute tote bag for my and my family’s vacation down to the coast last September. It’s super cute, a great size, and it zips on the top, so it was perfect to bring along on most of our adventures!
We got our first real snow on December 4th. We were only supposed to get an inch or two, but when I woke up and looked out my window it was a winter wonderland! There’s such a specific feeling to going to sleep with no snow and waking up to this beauty, and it cannot be explained. The fact that I have a friend who lives in New Zealand and has never seen snow in his life still boggles my mind.
Of course it was very heavy, wet snow which resulted in us losing power for a few hours, so I went outside and built a little snowman while we were left in the dark. He had a face on both sides: one for us and one for everyone driving by. The faces didn’t end up lasting long (the eyes very quickly started to melt out), but the snowman [incredibly] lasted for days. He defied all logic — and gravity — by bending completely over, while never losing his head. By the time he melted, his head was almost touching the ground, while still remaining firmly attached to his body.
I truly magical snowman.
when you wake up in the night to a snowplow going by your house, you know that you’re going to wake up to something beautiful in the morning
art by jordan rae 