Living a Happy Life

Today I woke to the first serious snow fall at the lake. 

 

Snow had settled on the grape vine that seemed to tap and scratch finger-like on my window pane closer to Halloween. 

Has the Christmas season begun? 

I felt the urge to decorate, but instead kept my focus on my morning's pre-determined tasks: paperwork  and planning. I stayed fairly well on task, but each window I passed as I moved about the house beckoned me to give a lingering gaze. 

The new play area between Lots 3 and 4 takes my breath away. The hill next to the Meadow Reach if Campbell Creek looks ready for a toboggan ride. 

The branches out the kitchen window, the one above the sink, drop small loads of snow in my periphery, my eyes darting about, only catching sight of waving branch now angled closer to the bole, looking out of place next to its relatives still bearing their packages.

When it was time for a  break, Arta and I did some team work. 

Soon  warm cookies were sitting on the cooling rack. The cookie recipe had called for shortening. 

I wondered aloud whether margarine and shortening were the same thing or whether lard and shortening were synonyms, as I scanned the fridge identifying options: margarine, butter, shortening, lard. We discussed what difference the choice would mean for the cookies.

We decided to stick to the recipe. Shortening it was. We were rewarded with a light chocolate chip oatmeal cookie that was soft in the center and lightly toasted on the top and bottom. 

I thought about  Darla Mae, the  contributor if this recipe to the 1992 Favorite Johnson Family Recipes collection, Mana from the Prairies. 

Was she still making Cowboy Cookies? 

Did she still like them? 

As I gazed out the lake-side windows of the kitchen, I thought of her father, my Uncle Bev, and his home-building contribution to this kitchen in which I was baking. 

With warm thoughts and gratitude I ate two more cookies, one for Darla and one for Bev.

Yes, the Christmas Season has begun, at least for me, with the weighty snow that has silenced the grape vine, and invited me to have a day indoors, baking and thinking if loved ones.

Bonnie