A cold winter day

Today was an almost perfect cold winter day.  The ground was covered in the purest snow of white.  The sky was vividly blue and void of clouds.  The air was still making the below freezing temperatures bearable.

I got an early start on my day and did the groceries as early as possible. I'd wanted to do so, in the hopes of getting a roast into the slow cooker for a nice dinner.  We bought a quarter cow from my in-laws last fall and still have a lot of meat left; many of which cuts that I don't cook with often.  I asked Brett to go pick one yesterday morning so that it could thaw and he picked a chuck roast.  I'd never really cooked one of these so I searched the ever reliable internet and found this recipe: Slow-cooker Pot Roast.  I noted a few ingredients which I didn't have and bought them today along with the rest of the groceries.  As I didn't read through the whole thing, I failed to realize I was out of red cooking wine, and beef broth.  How does one run out of beef broth anyways?  I improvised and used white wine instead of red, and vegetable broth instead of beef broth.

As the roast, vegetables and sauce started heating up, delicious aromas filled the house.  It sure made us both very hungry all day!  Every 2 hours, Brett would ask: "Is it time to eat yet?"

As the roast tenderized in the crock pot, I enjoyed a productive and fun day.  I reviewed a lot of paperwork, as kids outside were sledding down the small hill of the green belt that lies behind our house.  Just a year ago, I'd watched children doing the same, as I held and rocked Preston, all the whilst telling him how we would go sledding together the following winter.  How things change.  I didn't wallow in the pain of my loss though.  I just savored the memory.  Perhaps the intoxicating incense of the spices that permeated the house helped make it so.  Delicious food and smells have a way of making people happy, somehow, don't they?

In between piles of paperwork, I played a few games and did enjoy an evening with friends, online on World of Warcraft, as we attempted to defeat two different encounters.  While we were not successful, we learned a lot about the fights, and laughed quite a bit.  It's nice to be able to have fun and laugh.

An so, it was an almost perfect cold winter day.  Sitting by the fire, a cat on my lap, hubby by my side.  Only one thing it missing; a perfect, smiling little boy.