Holiday season

 The holiday season is upon us. 

Last week I submitted a grant proposal. It is for a relatively small grant, but it was a big deal for me to finish. I am catching up with my other work, but as soon as the grant application was done I felt much more jolly and bright. 

Thursday was just a regular day here, but we celebrated American Thanksgiving on Saturday. I made an apple pie which was a bit of an experiment for me (a vegan crust that is substantially different from a butter crust) but it turned out very well. I have some notes for what I might do differently next time, but I was pleasantly surprised by how buttery it tasted.

We have very nearly finished putting up our Christmas lights (all that’s left is a light up squirrel that needs a little TLC before it can go outside). This is the earliest we have ever had our lights up, but based on how many people already had lights up on our street and in our neighborhood, it felt like we were late. Our neighbours a few houses down and put up Christmas lights the day after Halloween.

We have been taking walks (I ride my trike) almost every night after dinner, and we are very much enjoying all the festive decorations.

Today we put up our Christmas tree (a fake tree – there aren’t enough trees in Saskatchewan for real trees to be sustainable) and unfortunately the cats immediately climbed it. Maren put up one ornament and the cats climbed the tree specifically to knock it down. We are hoping they will habituate to the tree after couple of days and we can decorate 😊

Cold weather, warm kitties

I know that many places are still feeling like fall, but it is definitely winter here. There is lots of snow that is here to stay, and the temperatures have been very cold. We are happy to have our warm kitties.

We are also happy to have our warm fireplace. We have been enjoying lots of fires, and the other night made s’mores (vegan — did you know you can make vegan s’mores? They are delicious). I tried to get Maren into a picture with me but it turned out to be just me:

Cat life

 We are settling into cat life. A few photos from last week:

Nyx and Puck

We adopted two cats on Thursday. 

We still miss Maddy and Koshka. We also missed having cats around. Most days Linden would say “Maddy died,” and I think that was her way of saying that she missed having cats too. On Tuesday while Maren was at school and Jeff was in a meeting, Linden and I went to our local cat café, where there is a room where you can hang out with adoptable cats from a local rescue. We met these sweet siblings, a brother and sister pair, and knew they were the ones. I texted Jeff, then we talked on the phone and we decided we would adopt them.

On Thursday we got to bring them home. They are adjusting very quickly, and are not scared of Maren  and Linden at all. Last week the weather was incredibly warm, with highs around 22°C/72°F. Today a winter storm rolled in and it got cold, really fast. So we had chocolate chip pancakes and a fire in the fireplace. Nyx and Puck were enamored.

I am working on writing a grant proposal, which means I have to work all the time, even on the weekends. But I had a lovely morning with my little family.

Halloween 🎃

 Last week was Jeff’s birthday. As per tradition, he had chocolate cake with orange frosting, as close to Halloween colours as you can get in a cake. This year we made him a donut shaped cake. 

We also celebrated Halloween. We thought that it might be very different this year, but it really wasn’t. We had lots of trick-or-treaters and we gave them candy through a chute. Maren and I dressed up as a couple of one eyed one horned flying purple people eaters, in our matching purple snowsuits. Linden was a tiger. 

Maren’s candy is quarantining, and we will have to take out all the non-vegan stuff, but there is so much candy that will not be a problem. We also bought some vegan Halloween chocolates to swap out, and made some Halloween cookies. 

All in all, it was a pretty festive day!