I like a dose of happy in the middle of the day. Usually I find it on a lunch-time walk, a welcome bit of solitude, preferably in decent temperatures. Here’s a story on a very friendly quokka from Australia. Still don’t know what a quokka is, other than a pile of cute.

Waking up with a throat on fire, and a new regime of physical therapy exercises to be executed every three hours, I found myself feeling all of my forty-one years, and then some. The exercises required warming my back first with a heating pad (hello 90) and the sore throat required some popsicles (hello 5). Somewhere in between them was the height of my middle age. We are here, for better or worse.

I’ve felt like an old soul since I was a little kid, yet the older I get, the younger I feel – mentally that is. Physically I feel the years, the decades. They show in my hair, my laugh lines, the furrow in my brow that doesn’t quite melt away the same way it once did. Aging doesn’t bother me, but the way the body begins its slow decline does. I’m coming around to the fact that no one is immune, and that I may need to modify what I eat and how I exercise, and take steps to improve both if I’m to have a full life. That’s a sobering thought, but one perfectly in line when you’re about halfway between 5 and 90.

This would be another dream of mine, though in the original version it was a church that I’d renovate and move into, with Gothic architecture, soaring ceilings, and a few rows of uncomfortable but impressive pews. Check out the amazing work that one person did on this former cement factory in Barcelona, and marvel at how beauty can come from ruin.

I love stories like this.

As thanks for Andy watching over their home in the winter, our snowbird neighbors sent this very thoughtful gift to us around Valentine’s Day. It’s a box of chocolates from the Harbor Candy Shop in our favorite place: Ogunquit, Maine. A wonderful reminder of that magical spot, and a lovely gesture from two people we are lucky to have as neighbors.

Memories of Ogunquit are always happy, and having just received word of this season’s offerings at the Ogunquit Playhouse it’s been on my mind of late. We won’t be there for a few months, so this gift was a perfectly-timed bridge to see us through to then. Good neighbors send good chocolate!

Hope is in the air. We’ve had our 70-degree tease of spring, and though there are several weeks to go before we officially move out of winter, I sense a light at the end of the tunnel. This is my favorite part of anything anyway: the anticipation. Spring holds the bright possibility of being perfect, or at least better than last year. It’s an annual wish, and one that I’m always happy to make.

If you envision it, somehow it will manifest itself.

I’m in no rush, and neither is winter. We haven’t seen the last of the snow or ice or wind. We’ve still got a ways to go. Who knows how lion-like our entry into March will be, but we’re on the right track, baby.

Until then, the prettiness of life in a northern town.

It changes around this time of the year.

It slants differently across the snow.

Richer and more robust than in the gray of December.

It holds promise in this new stance.

The last light of February is upon us.

One day more.

We are gearing up for going in the next month like a lion, but there are a few more days of the shortest month of the year left to be had, so let’s recap the last bit of February here (and recuperate from the Academy Award mayhem).

Pink goes good with green.

A cocktail that leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

The magic lives.

A moment of peace.

Joe Jonas in his underwear again.

Scallions & parsley.

A pretty little cycle.

The enchanting ‘Lily & the Octopus’ by Steven Rowley.

Fantasizing.

My brother’s 40th birthday. Now we are old.

Ice ice baby.

Andy on the radio.

A smorgasbord of Hunks.

Other February Hunks included Joe Putignano, Josh Ohl, Jonathan Guijarro & Tom Frelinghuysen.

Fairy tales of ice queens have fascinated and enthralled me since I was a child, while simultaneously terrifying with their hidden threat of danger. Such thrills are the bane and brilliance of winter at once. A sorceress of ice can chill the warmest heart. The crimson branches that once swayed in a warm breeze have been stilled by the wave of an icy wand. The world looks and feels frozen. In such perfect beauty there is an unforgiving coldness, a sense that no matter how much you try to chip away at it, the heart can never be discovered.

Yet even within the frigid confines of an icy prison, some vermillion stems still pulse with life, their cells preserved in a holding pattern until a thaw. It cannot be seen by the naked human eye, but life remains in a sort of sleep. We all want to rest in the winter.

One day, not too far away, the sun will once again conquer the ice. It will melt away and reveal the wet pulsating life that once seemed lost. The return of spring.

I sense it through the crystalline beauty.

Even in the midst of winter, the garden offers delights if you know when and where to look. In this instance, it’s the afternoon hour of a sunny day, beneath a wayward gutter which coated a coral bark maple in layers of ice, like some ridged chunk of Swarovski crystal. Icicles dangled precariously from its rigid limbs, and as pretty as it was, I worried what damage might be born to the beautiful bark.

There are some things you can’t control, however, and ice freezes are one of them. Last year we had a very late stretch of frigid weather that decimated the entire crop of lilac buds. We had wrapped the shrub in plastic in a last-ditch effort to keep the buds alive, all to no avail. Some years are like that, and there’s nothing to be done.

I’m not sure what effect this icing might have on the coral bark maple. Hopefully it will come out of it unscathed. At the very least, it’s going out with a bang of beauty. Winter casts its own spell.

Another woefully-underused fresh herb is the flat leaf Italian parsley. The curly kind has given it all sorts of bad ubiquitous names, but its unique flavor, especially when used as more than just a garnish, lends a brightness that too often gets ignored because the dried kind, and the restaurant abuse of the curly kind, has made it such a pariah in home cooking. Nobody remembers to use it, but it belongs in so many dishes, chopped fresh and sprinkled on at the last minute. Give it a green whirl again.