I think I may have missed out a little on the joy of winter this year.  I did try.  But me and my belly just wanted to be warm; to feel fresh vitamin d on our skin; to go for a walk without becoming breathless from cold; to go outside without getting soaked.

But this blog is my attempt to see beauty in every morning – to fend off discouragement by keeping my eye out for the joy to be had everywhere.  I think somewhere in my nauseated and exhausted mess of a last three months I might have forgotten that.

I just found these photos from this past winter (on a rare day when I was motivated to capture a fleeting moment of loveliness) on my camera.  And it reminded me that winter really is pretty wonderful.

I’m backtracking and making up for lost time.  The world is lovely, whether I’m ready to see it or not.

I owe my readers an apology.  The last couple of months I haven’t been so great about writing.  This last, longest hiatus was caused by getting a bout of stomach flu while traveling.  Yeah, ugh.

But today the sun is shining and lets forget about my neglect.

Today, I’m feeling nostalgic for spring in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania in general.  And I think I’m going to miss it when spring rolls into Ohio.

I’m going to miss the sunlight filtering through the ubiquitous trees.

I’m going to miss the hydrageas and roses in the old brick and wrought iron gardens.

I think I’m actually going to miss the constant summer rains.

I’ll miss those first warm evenings, with those creaky old windows open wide and fresh, wet forest-y air wafting in.

I’m going to miss the finally green hills, and woods, and the way sunsets filter over a big hill.

Most of all, I’m going to miss that first hot day in April, when we’d head down to the shore.

That’s what I want today when the sunshine gleams off my frozen pond.  Yes.

I’m fascinated by light.  I mean regular, sunshiney light.  One of the things I love about the camera is playing with the settings and seeing how different I can make my subject look just by how much and what kind of light I let in and out.

But occasionally, I like to just sit and let the real light change on its own.  So subtle, so nuanced, and so lovely.

Take a moment today to just sit and let yourself see something that you usually don’t when you’re too busy, too scattered, too thoughtful.

The rest of this week I’ll be sharing a moment, every day, that I’m thankful for.  Because I believe that no matter who or where or what we are, we can fight for one moment a day that we can just count our blessings.

I’m thankful for twilight in my hometown.  It’s always lovely.

I’ve been sick for eight and a half days now.  Eight and a half days.  The only other time I can remember being sick with anything for that long is the respiratory flu in ninth grade.

Today, I stepped foot outside my apartment for the first time in seven days.  I hacked, snuffled, moaned and whined for a half an hour as I threw on some clothes and makeup, gave Andy dirty looks and crawled into the car, going through half a pack of tissues and several cough drops on the way to church.  We pulled into the parking lot, I came close to both tears and nausea and we turned around and headed back home, where I crawled right back into bed and slept for another three hours.

I read a 300 page book yesterday.  I read 50 pages of a super boring book today and spent the rest of the day watching nine episodes of Psych Season 2.  I’ve barely left my favorite corner of the couch for a week.  There’s been take-out, and varied medicines, there’s been 7 am bowls of ramen soup and an entire bag of baking chocolate chips consumed.

Why?  I’m a healthy individual.  It’s just a cold.  I spend every day resting, eating loads of antioxidants, drinking more fluids than my body should be able to contain and taking frequent three hour naps.  I’ve even worked it out so that I can watch TV on my iMac from the couch without getting up to change episodes, once I realized that my wireless mouse and keyboard worked from across the room.  Each evening I go to bed confident that I will wake up renewed and refreshed and ready to move on with my life.

And what happens?  I wake myself each morning around 5 or 6 coughing a lung up.  I drag myself out of bed to a hot cup of cocoa and a bowl of whatever soup is handy and spend the rest of the day croaking.

So why, I ask you???

Andy’s theory is that it’s the coffee I drank each morning for a week a little while ago in an attempt to get up earlier (he also calls coffee, DayQuil, Ibuprofen, and chai tea “drugs” with that special inflection reserved for only the most nefarious of items).

I think that the culprit is rest.  I think that, just like sleep, my body is making up for the years of enforced containment of colds and sickness as I refused to let it get in the way of work, fun, homework, studying, or anything.  It’s saying Leah, you WILL stay on this couch until you’ve paid your debt to your immune system.

So here I am.  Going to bed with more dreams of grandeur while, deep down, the hope is gone.  How many episodes of Psych will it be tomorrow?  Ten?

To make up for the horrid blueness of this post, here’s a few pretty pictures of fall in the area – my last memories of the outdoors before I became chained to my living room -