Thank you, God, for our day. 

It was really cold.  The end of my day was a sunset, -2*,  but! only a small breeze, not a wind.  Lucy German Shepherd and I got in a 2K walk in the snow (no running in this temp.) 

That Spouse o' Mine has got his call that he is on deck to get his Covid-19 Vaccination! 

It's been quite a good day.   

Hygge Memories, Decades Old

 I follow something somewhere that touts Hygge- "a quality of coziness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being (regarded as a defining characteristic of Danish culture)."

I think all cultures have it - be it a cozy fireplace, or candles placed in amazing spots, or that scent of fresh-baked something coming from the kitchen.

The photo shown was this:

Such a pretty photo.  I do love me a bunch of books.  (Ask that Spouse o' Mine.)  What it brought to mind for me was my grandmother Gram's "formal" living room in Blackwell, Oklahoma, ca 1968-1980ish.  

When she and Grandpa moved from "The Farm" into Blackwell, Gram acquired some really lovely pink satin or silk French Provincial  living room furniture - a sofa (or loveseat?  Too many years ago to recollect.) , and two matching chairs.  Gorgeous.  A marble table (which was not a coffee table, because coffee was not allowed on that table.  Rings, you know.)

In addition to this furniture, Gram's living room was stocked, not with books - as this photo, which I love, but with china.  Lots and lots of beautiful china pieces.  And she had hand-painted most of her living room collection.  It was so, so pretty, even to ten-year-old me.  (I grew up and embraced it all along my childhood.)

Gram's house had a scent to it that I adore even now, in my 60th year.  Not fresh-baked cookies, not turkey at Thanksgiving, but: turpentine.  Yes!  My mother would disparage that smell of brushes soaking in turpentine in Gram's house, but I still adore the connection of Gram's house, her beautiful home full of china, and the eau de turpentine scent. 

When I was in single-digits and then, early double-digits, and we were visiting Gram and Grandpa, and then, just Gram, I would find myself drawn to her living room - the one where no one sat (but me, I guess?).  I would find a good book tucked in some bookcase somewhere and lose myself in the rich pink sofa, in the china-filled room.  What a fantastic place for a young mind to read, and to imagine.

Decades later, my Mom and I were reminiscing about all things past, and Gram's living room came up in conversation.  It turns out, according to Mom, that Gram never liked us grandkids going into her living room.  Well, heck, yeah, I can see why!  The same reason I never accepted any of my Dad's original wood sculptures in my home until our kids went to college.  Ha.  I only borrowed his bronzes and marble sculptures. Kids and breakables: nope!  But I adored Gram's china, and her too-gorgeous-for-Blackwell living room.  I am so grateful that she let me sit in that room (for hours and hours, over the years) and let my imagination run wild with my books.