Monday, January 19. 2026

I know many of you are enjoying a three-day weekend in observation of MLK, Jr. Day but Tom is back to work, so it feels like a Monday to me. I am linking up with Sarah and Holly if they are still doing it today.

January is really flying by! I’m so glad I put my Valentine’s decor out so I can enjoy it longer. I’m also enjoying my red love, love, love mug below. After V Day, I will put up my St. Patrick’s Day decor, then Easter, then Derby (I live in Louisville, KY so it’s a must). I basically just do my mantel and my hall table so it’s pretty minimal.

I took a look at my Winter Goals list and I am doing pretty well. I ordered new pillow covers for the couch, a new blanket, and a little candle warmer lamp since one of my goals is to hygge up my living room. Those things will arrive soon and I’m excited.

Let’s go back to Thursday late afternoon. I went to a different library branch for an event. Look how modern it is with the books laid out.

It looks cool, but I actually don’t like this library as much as my quaint library. This library has a demo kitchen and a different chef each month this year will be doing demonstrations for free. Thursday was the German cookbook author/chef and she was demonstrating pretzels and a cheese spread.

Elizabeth met me there.

It was fun but the demo was really crowded, and the chef was super disorganized. I think she was nervous because of how many people came but she didn’t have her supplies organized and she didn’t explain the process very well or work out the timing well. She was the same one from the cooking class Tom and I took that we paid for which was much better.

The library staff wasn’t handing out the materials in an organized way or handling the seating overflow in an organized way. As a teacher it is hard to see this. I chatted with a woman on the other side of me and she was having a hard time with this, too, because she leads lots of events at University of Louisville. I’m glad it wasn’t just me.

I think I will go back in a couple of weeks with Elizabeth because she wants to do the schnitzel one. I’m hopeful that the other chefs will be good.

I made dinner before I left so I had that when I got home:

I am obsessed with doing laundry because of this smell and that is how I started my Friday – it makes the whole house smell good. I would go in a Bath and Body Works and smell for yourself. They also have maybe nine other scents.

I also re-created the spread that the chef taught us. It is a butter/cream cheese mixture with relish, grated onion, and spices.

I got my Zenni glasses in the mail. I picked a very similar style to my doctor office frames but these are a dark green tortoise shell. I love them! I get a little twitchy when I don’t have a spare pair so this was needed.

Eddie Otis loves to help take trash cans down and bring them back up. I try to involve him in as many activities as I can. He felt that he needed to take Elefante out with us. I hope he always loves his stuffed animals so much.

I have to tell you what he does when he sleeps in Mason’s bed. I open Mason’s door and EO is sitting at attention on the bed waiting like a good boy for a human to release him. I walk to him and he hands me his paw like we are shaking hands and he hands me his paw a few more times. Then, in order to get down from the bed he needs to get a stuffed animal in his mouth and then he jumps down and heads to the kitchen. Mason stays asleep during this whole process. EO sleeps all night in bed with us about half the week and with Mason half the week.

Tom is so tired by Friday so I usually order food or make something rather than go out. We decided on frozen pizza, but I had some pimento cheese and the spread I made on some bread and some V Day Junior Mints out for him.

I think he loves a little appetizer when he comes home. Then, we walked EO together in the brutal cold.

We built a fire and started His and Hers and Seven Dials on Netflix.

Saturday morning was a little icy. We didn’t get nearly what they said we would get.

Tom and EO left for a longer walk and I did all the things. It’s so much easier to clean when Tom takes him out of the house so that is the routine for now.

I got out around noon and got a car wash…

and went to this boutique which is closing in March, sadly. The owners are retiring but so many things around me are closing and it’s so sad.

We went to dinner around 5:30. I picked last Saturday so Tom got to pick this weekend. He picked Martin’s BBQ and it was really good. I really liked my salad and…

the nachos were good, too. I will never pick bbq over another type of food but it’s fine.

Our routine in January has been to eat at home on Friday and go out on Saturday and it’s just been the two of us and it’s been really nice. We like to go out around 5:30 and it’s perfect. We came home and watched another Seven Dials. We also started Best Medicine and Tom is not sure if it’s his cup of tea but it is kind of cute. There have been lots of things for us to watch in this bitter cold.

Sunday was mopping, grocery, and a few other things.

I found these at the store:

$1.75 tulips!

I made lunch and then we did another fire and watched some shows together and I read.

My 5th book of January:

It is Christmasey but it sounded good so I went with it!

I’ve been seeing everyone take it back to 2016 – is that just because it’s 10 years ago? So much has changed for me since then. My parents were traveling together and really enjoying semi-retirement and they were visiting grandkids any chance they could. My twins were 13. My camera roll on my phone goes back to 2017 so I will have to do some digging to find 2016.

Facebook memories that pop up can be really fun like this one:

Ok, Mason…

Tell me something you did this weekend!

Amy