I know these habits are an important part of you

The place smells like apple, cinnamon and spices. Until just about an hour ago, it was toasty inside. Even now, as the wind outside starts to creep through the walls, everything feels quite cozy at the moment.

I've still got a lot of adrenaline left over from finals and the impending arrival of my parents. There were a lot of not-particularly relaxing activities that needed to be done today. As is usually my way, I put off all sorts of things until I was free from the claws of studying. So today was filled with a lot of catching up- replacing light bulbs, filling out overdue paperwork at various governmental offices around town, sorting through a pile of set aside mail. I also had to drop by a friend's place- AP's going out of the country during the holidays, and I'm one of the few people left in the area for that time, so I am to look after her plants and check her mail. It's pure folly for her to leave me with any kind of botanical responsibilities- it is well-established that I am horrible at growing plants of any kind. All the same, I will try my best not to kill her orchid before her return.

AP seized the opportunity to loan me her collection of Battlestar Galactica DVDs. There is at least one person out there who is chuckling at this-- I've stalled on watching BSG for ages now. But I do finally have some time on my hands, and now I have the DVDs too, so I no longer have much of an excuse.



left or right

You can see that, in addition to acquiring BSG DVDs, I made some progress towards completing one set of gloves. I have to tell you that these gloves are a bit garish. I'd concluded from the beginning that they were going to be lousy- first attempts should have low expectations. But they're also ugly, which is just an added perk.

Besides that, there is the cause of all the spices wafting through the air in my apartment. I forgot how relaxing I find it. All of the baked goods pictured above are items I made with no particular recipients in mind. I hope to give them to someone, but there wasn't much planning involved. In some ways, it's really too late to be making anything for the holidays, but logic has been set aside in this house. And besides which, I simply like the feeling. There's something that makes you feel like you are at home, and that something for me is exactly this smell.

What's more is that, this time of year, when I'm baking, even when it's without a particular purpose in mind, I just get to thinking about friends who are not near to me at the moment. I don't think of them with sadness, don't bemoan their distance, even though I might like them to be closer in an ideal world. I'm not explaining it particularly well, but baking this time of year just reminds me of my friends and this just adds to the comfort that all these simple ingredients bring when combined together.

I wish that the next week could be as relaxing, but there are certain realities that will not allow that. But it's okay. There's something comforting in the awareness that such days exist, that they existed in the past, that they return as quickly when called upon now, and that they will be there in the future. So tonight, I'm content and happy even.

ETA: sorry about the techically glitched earlier unintelligible version of this post (although some of you will find very little difference in terms of coherence)- three + years of blogging, and I still can't figure out the simplest of issues!