sweaters and catalogs

 

I have absolutely never ordered anything from a catalog. But pouring over those glossy pictures of beautiful people in sweaters holding golden retriever puppies by fireplaces just puts me in a cozy mood. And I'm all about cozy culture. This is Darcy's first chilly season obsession with mugs of hot chocolate--the kind of jacuzzi mugs that are a pleasure to hold. And we like the hot chocolate to have tiny red and white flakes of peppermint. We perch beside nice open windows or blowing fans while we're buried two feet deep in thick, soft comforters. These little things are comforting to us girls.
 

Growing up, we got the most fantastic catalogs. My very favorite, the one I waited for all year, was the JcPenny Christmas catalog. I was a little thing sprawled out on an area rug in front of the fireplace sizzling with embers, pencil in hand, making little circles around fun items I liked best. I would stare at the faces of those people clad in flannel, lounging on couches in log cabins, and I'd create their stories in my imagination. Because playing the part of a voyeuristic seven-year-old peering in one of their cabin's frost-encrusted windows, I simply had to know. How did they get it so good.

 

 

 

All it has to do is rain. Then I declare it a day of cozy festivity.

I may not have a dusting of snow, any exposed lumber in my home, or a square inch of flannel to my name, but I have what I have. Darcy and I pull the chairs out from under the kitchen table, and cover it with extra large blankets to create our cave. We stock the inside with books and snacks. Sometimes, when we want to feel extra close to the magical pattering precipitation, we arrange pillows and blankets in a corner of the garage. I turn Pandora on my phone, and Michael Buble serenades us through the torrents: And I get to kiss you baby just because I CAN!
 

When Darcy and I are set up in this way, sprawled before tempestuous weather from within our pillowy den of warmth, I have to wonder. How did I get it so good.