things i will do in february.

We had snow, briefly, which meant a trek to Prospect Park and careening down a slick hillside, belly laughing. The trick to sledding is leaving the hill before anyone wants to. Wait to leave until everyone’s asked, and the 30-minute journey home becomes a feat requiring more stores of patience, cheer, and coping skills than anyone has left. (We have yet to leave while a sledding hill before everyone wants to.)

Currently we have rain and melting snow which means mounting slush pits and mounting melancholy, so I decided to bake a cake. I didn’t have neutral oil, so I poured liquid gold extra virgin olive in there instead. I ran out of vanilla, so I subbed orange extract. The top came out lumpy, so I poured over a citrus-scented glaze and sprinkled on rose petals and lemon zest and decided it looks delicious enough. This is what actually happened and it’s also a metaphor for my winter survival tactics. I am calling it a “no-reason cake,” though it’s probably more of a “forgive-me- for-the-things-I-said-in-February cake” or a “it’s-raining-in-winter cake.”

I have ordered yards of Indian cotton from online fabric shops. Sometimes I just have to leap into the unknown, especially when it comes to indigo grids and tiny blue flowers and especially in February. I see proper curtains in my future to replace the ripped sheets and drop cloth that have been hanging on my rods for a year. If ever there were a time to attempt sewing straight lines on an old sewing machine, February feels like it. Maybe those old sheets will become a braided rug I make myself. Maybe not.

Other things I will do in February:

Keep up with my back exercises.

Move the lamps around.

Celebrate a second birthday.

Wrap my head around summer break.

Eat lunch before 2:00 pm.

Bake another cake.

Watch more miniseries than is strictly advised.

Lower my expectations.

You?