I made myself a giant pot of chicken and rice soup, with baked acorn squash mixed in to deepen the broth. I shared it with everyone yesterday, but they’ll move on to other things. It’ll last the next two to three days at least. This section of winter is one of my favorite stretches of time. With the holiday season now behind us, there’s the season between New Year’s and whenever Lent starts.

Then you have the slow climb out of the dark days, from Lent to Easter where you are given a second chance at fasting and reorganizing your life. By the time Easter comes it seems like years since Ash Wednesday, and people keep talking about spring finally arriving, when in fact it is only what some have called fake spring. It takes another six weeks for the weather to turn and become summer.

The kids slept in until almost eleven today. Dad was up early but fell back asleep on the couch while reading. Even the early birds can’t ignore nature’s cues, though they’ll be back by mid-February. I told him I like when he sleeps in, but I don’t remember when I woke up. We didn’t have Augustine’s City of God. They had it at Barnes and Noble so I might try and stop by on my way over to work on Spring.