Today, the wind off the lake, combined with the steady hum of the space heater, is drowning out my laptop speakers. While we've been lucky overall, winter, outside of few early snowfalls well before December, has decided to descend upon Chicago in one fell swoop--high waves on the water, snow flurries, wind that I have expect to be carrying a witch by on a bicycle. I am luckily tucked inside for the weekend, filling book orders, working on edits for the poets zodiac, and watching thrift haul videos on youtube, as well as season two of YOU, to which I am addicted. I don't think I've ever been quite as grateful for groceries that come directly to me as I was this afternoon, and am now stocked up on coffee, chicken soup ingredients, and general food for the next two weeks. (sometimes I just get the heavy stuff like cat litter and food delivered and opt to trek to Aldi for the cheaper groceries, but not this week.)
The past week has been a readjust after an entire two weeks away, and one week totally staying home and not leaving my apartment, which is my very best hobby lately--"not leaving the apartment," which I am very good at and hope to do more of in 2020. While previous years would have been split, even when off from the library, with a need to go downtown to the studio, now there is absolutely nowhere else I need to be now. I can make books and art to my contentment in the middle of the night and then crawl into my comfy bed without having to get fully dressed at all. It's amazing.
During that break, I managed to catch up on fall orders that I was super behind on, organize my dining room into something like an orderly home studio, and organize both my coat closet and my clothes closet in the bedroom. There are other tasks I hope to take on in coming weeks--regrouting my bathtub, organizing my desk drawer mess in the living room, but they aren't urgent. I also managed to tardily swap out my fall clothes for winter ones (though this is my least favorite swap, but I do like that it has more velvet than other seasons.) The fall swap came late due to temps staying warm through Sept. and then I've just been behind on wearing things for the past two seasons.
About 1/3 of my closet is always being switched out, so I try to make sure I actually wear the stuff while it's available--otherwise I get rid of it. The everything goes back in the bins for another year--things like flannel, velvet, winter florals, dresses too short to really wear without tights, etc The bonus is feeling like I get a partially new wardrobe every season and sometimes the delight of forgetting I put away something cool. My favorite thing about winter, though I suppose also fall and early spring is sweater dresses, which occupy the suitcases on the bottom of the dress rack, two more of which I procured on sale right before Christmas, one in black, the other in my new obsession color, dark green. Keeping them tucked away does spares them fom many hazards, including saggy shoulders from hanging, the errant moth, and dangerous siamese claws.
