You put on ski pants and a tuque and scarf and jacket and mitts and boots. It takes an hour* to dress to go out.

I'm keeping warm, carrying wood in, stoking the stove, going for short walks between food prep and cleanage, reading and writing. Been to a potluck gathering of the Likeminded Ladies and for supper at Jack and Dawna's. The stuff of life.

I asked my sister Jill how she felt about being the basis of a character in the fictional journal I 'm posting.

"Use my middle name instead of my first," she said, "and it's fine."

"Okay, done. I've asked someone else to write entries for your character, too. Thought that might help keep it interesting."

"Kate, you've never written anything boring," she said. Jill doesn't know about this journal, mind you.

But is as loyal and lovely a sister as ever a person could have.

xoxo
etc
kate

* slightly exaggerated