Things I LIKE about winter

... more specificaly, about this winter.
The festive seasons are over and the long winter begins. Or so it seems. Usually I get 10x the usual Sunday evening blues at about this time but this year I'm bracing myself against it. Firstly, now that we have to walk the dog every day I'm testing out the theory that I just need more light and exercise in the winters to keep my spirits up. So far it's working. Second, I'm making a mental list of the reasons why I like winter and I'm working to make sure that I have good things to look forward to. So here it is:

-Christmas, New Years and all the other good socializing and relaxing.
- The silloettes of trees. I don't know why but I love looking at the bare tree just before sunset. There's so many different shapes and sizes... i wish I could identify them.
-Mom and Dad told me about the "blue hour" and how it turns into the "grey hour". Described in that way, I like looking for the right colours to feel out the day.
-Cass and Mike's stag and doe. Not just that day but for the next two months I'll be trying to organize and plan it. By the way, keep Feb. 28th open.
-It's freezing so there's no mud at least!
-Pulling out the graph paper, seed catalogues and the imagination. I love planning a garden in the winter. I rarely actually use any of my plans but it is almost as good as the horticultural therapy of actually being in the garden.
-Dan and I are planning on going away for a weekend with our friends Mike & Meg to the blacksheep inn. We haven't picked a date yet but I think that March would be a perfect month for it. I'm super excited about this one. It's a road trip, a night (or 2) away, good visiting with friends and probably some really good music. Maybe we can get some snow shoeing or something in too. Fun eh?
-As soon as there is any thaw, I have full permission to make whatever garden I want here. That should be fun. Good thing I have a roto tiller!

That's it for now but I'm really going to try to add to this list.

OH Oma

I called my Oma today (my mom's mom). What a hoot. She is such a funny lady. I LOVE her. Well, in our conversation she mentioned she got a fwd. from someone about "you know you're dutch when..." I could name a bunch of them before she even told me about it. So here's the list:
You Know You're Dutch When..

• The temperature is so low in your house that 2 sweaters is a bare minimum if you want to be remotely warm.
• During the winter it's warmer outside than it is inside. You open the freezer and are excited to find a container of ice-cream, only to open it and discover it's full of homemade soup or stamppot.
• When looking in the fridge, you never trust that the yogurt or margarine containers contain what the label says.
• You were green before it was popular. Why recycle when you can just reuse!
• You have a pair a wooden shoes in your house.
• Your china cabinet is filled with Delft.
• You like pickled herring.
• You've eaten oliebollen at New Years.
• You enjoy chocolate sprinkle (hagelslag) sandwiches.
• You have cousins who wear size 14 shoes and are over 6'4"
• You wash and reuse plastic cups and plastic cutlery.
• You have soup and open-faced sandwiches for Sunday lunch.
• The most frequent phrase uttered growing up was "Turn off the lights!"
• You get a chocolate letter every year for Christmas.
• All the tables in your house are covered in tablecloths.
• You like krokets.
• You know that Vla is better than regular old pudding.(Vla is a runny custard pudding.)
• You drink tea with breakfast, coffee at 10 am, tea at 3 pm, and coffee again at 8 pm (with cookies or biscuits of course!)
• You have an afghan knitted by your Oma.
• You collect coupons like they're going out of style.
• Your Oma had a calendar with everyone's birthdays & anniversaries spelled out in capital letters (bonus points if it hung in the bathroom!)
• You've been known to recycle aluminum foil. And ziploc bags.
• You own a special utensil that is only used for cutting cheese.
• You know that Gouda is the best cheese ever.
• You have at least 5 relatives with the same name (and somehow you always know which one is being talked about).
• You reuse teabags.
• When you hear all the "new ways to save energy" you yawn and say "I've been doing that all my life!"
• You eat your sandwiches open-faced. "What? You want another slice of bread? I'll make you another sandwich."
• You rarely have both meat and cheese on the same sandwich.
• You have never met half the relatives at your family reunion
• You have 100 rolls of toilet paper in your house because they were on sale.
• You put a little water into the jar of tomato sauce and shake it to make sure you got it all out.
• You have trouble shopping for hats. There should be at least two sizes:'one size fits all' and 'dutch'.
• You wipe the last of the butter out of the container with your bun.
• All your cookies taste like almonds.
• You make the bed in your hotel room.
• You have lace on your windows but not on your underwear.
• You like dubbel zout drops, and have occasionally tricked a friend into trying one.
• You've put mayonnaise on your french fries.
• Your kitchen is filled with milk bags drying, waiting to be reused in the freezer.
• You drink Heineken out of pride.
• You have a front room but nobody sits in it (or it's only used for special occasions).
• You have a spoon collection.
• Your favourite mustard comes in jars that can be reused as drinking glasses.
• You leave a window open year round to get fresh air.
• You eat stroop waffles.
• You love the colour orange.
• You have a vegetable garden because there's no way you're paying that much for veggies at the grocery store.
• Your fridge is always stocked with leftovers. Throw out food? Never!
• You go to the "Dutch Store" because the smell brings back so many childhood memories.
• You have pictures of windmills around your house.
• Everything is Do-It-Yourself - it's cheaper than hiring someone.
• You use "washandjes" (facecloths that you can put your hand into).
• You have to explain what 'om' and 'tante' means when you're discussing your relatives with non-Dutch people.
• You own tea towels and oven mitts patterned with windmills and dancing women in clogs.
• You call it "MELK" not "milk".
• All your cousins have the same names as your brothers and sisters, because everyone is named after Oma and Opa.
• And finally, you know you're Dutch when..You're laughing along with this list because you can relate to most of it!

I know it's a long list. I laughed at most of it.... the others I didn't understand. Maybe I'm getting a little weak in my dutch genes.