
Yours truly visiting the Ice Palace in St. Paul, MN Sunday, January 28, 2018
Inspired by a prompt in the current winter issue of Bella Grace, I kept a log for the past month, writing down one happy thing per day. I found it to be a good practice that, as easy as it sounds, still required a little bit of discipline to actually think about each evening. Here goes:
- moonlight shadows on snow
- Christmas lights sparkling in the dark countryside
- chocolate chip cookies at the Albert (EMC2 Hotel, Chicago)
- shopping with my daughter
- my new thermos French press coffee maker
- buttery chocolate chip cookies
- the smell of banana bread baking
- lunch at a designer hotel with my son
- 13 blissful hours home alone
- cute teapot gift from my boss
- pizza out with my kids
- walking to a fancy pastry shop on a blustery winter afternoon with my daughter
- the sunny spot on the couch in our sun porch
- helping my son submit his application to study in Jerusalem next year
- banana bread with butter
16. discovering a Gabriele Münter painting (The Blue Gable, 1911) in the Krannert Art Museum in Urbana-Champaign
17. memorial ceremony for a 96-year-old colleague of mine
18. wonderful memoir workshop with my students
19. quiet day at home
20. iced-over lakefront
21. designing a newspaper layout for my son
22. planting bulbs on my porch (it was warm enough!)
23. my cardboard box standing desk contraption that lets me work standing and relieves the pain in my hip
24. a great chat with a friend
25. a nice email from a reader about my book
26. cooking chickpea soup
27. having a major insight while writing my Morning Pages
28. amazing day at ModernWell in Minneapolis (and visiting the ice palace in St. Paul!)
29. two-hour phone chat with my sister
30. a whole day of working in bed (also good for my aching hip)
31. a good dinner conversation with my husband and son
Retyping my list here was a happy thing to do, too. What a nice way to review the month of January, to remember icy wonders along Chicago’s lakefront or in downtown St. Paul, days mild enough to clean up my porch and find paper white bulbs to plant, days of working and writing and good times spent with my family and friends.

Ice Palace 2018, St. Paul, MN
Banana bread is always welcome! The iced over lake front is incredible, and I’ve seen that ice palace in another blog too.
Yes, banana bread is the best except it turns out one of my sons doesn’t like it…
Lovely! I noticed chocolate chip cookies get mentioned twice 😉
Ah, yes, whenever all my kids are home, there’s a lot of baking!
Love the pictures of the Ice Palace. Brings back happy memories from Winter carnivals past when I lived in Minnesota.
Thanks again for the tip, David! They sure know how to do winter up in Minnesota!