Full Tummy, Warm Coat!

New year new me! Nah....just kidding....but today I actually got dressed in some real clothes and took a journey further than a five-mile radius from our home. I felt a bit like a puppy when you ask if they want to go for a ride. "Allyson....you wanna go for a ride??!! Huh??!! Dooooo yooouuuuu??!!! (Or am I the only one that talks to dogs that way).

After some morning pillow-talk about the usual things like the state of the country, and the whole world for that matter, we decided it was time to get me out of the house for a bit. I'm a home-body at heart, but winter can take it's toll. And a winter that has included so much forced staying home combined with such a huge loss in my life has been extra brutal to say the least.

I have purchased enough house-plants to nearly start my own nursery. Contemplated getting a puppy, but not quite ready for that. So the compromise between starting a greenhouse nursery and purchasing a dog today apparently was a simple trip to Park City. We had some business we needed to do up that way anyway, so we grabbed our coats and headed out!

Recently I purchased this wonderful coat from this company https://www.kuhl.com/ It is everything I have always wanted/needed in a coat and finally now have. Lightweight, toasty warm, not bulky, and it covered my bum and thighs! Finally! I find myself even wearing it in the house, because although I am perpetually cold, I also hate having the furnace running. It makes zero sense, I know. But most of my menopausal life has not made a whole lot of sense so whatev.

I'm old enough that I can tell you true stories of wearing socks on my hands for mittens, and bread bags around my shoes with rubber-bands to keep them on for snow-shoes. When I was around ten years old, my mother ordered a Frostline kit jacket for me. I was beyond excited! A down coat like my brothers had! It finally arrived in the mail and I remember looking at her and I don't recall her looking terribly thrilled.

Easy! Order your kit and you too can make a jacket like this one!

Poor Mama.....I wouldn't be too excited to see a box full of these supplies either

Day after day, I'd come home from school..."Mama! Where are you?"...."I'm back here in my bedroom sewing sweetie! Come on back here and see how it's coming along!" Some days it just looked like blue fabric tubes, other days the tubes would start to be sewn together. One day I came home and she was stuffing tubes of feathers into the tubes of fabric and she was doing quite a bit of muttering under her breath and I just backed out of the room and went to get my usual graham crackers and milk after-school snack. I could live with the coat I had....no big deal...

The big day arrived though! I walked back to her room and the coat officially had a zipper! She held it out and I slid one arm in, and then another, and VOILA! Perfect fit! And ooohhhhh sooooooo warm!!! I was in heaven! Not a perfect fit, but that was on purpose. Just a little too big so I could wear it for a very long time. "Allyson, take it off so I can put the elastic in the wrists." "Later on Mama! Please don't make me take it off, it's so so WARM!!!" So I didn't take it off. And she never put in the elastic. I wore that coat into my twenties. With no elastic in the wrists. Looking back, I think I sort of liked that it had no elastic. That way if people asked me why it looked like that, I could tell them, "Because my mother sewed it for me." I wish I had kept it.

My coat looked a lot like this. Minus the elastic wrist bands :)

The drive to Park City was typically pleasant. We drove slowly around the tiny one-way streets admiring the architecture and the store-fronts. Our car always manages to park itself right in front of High West Distillery https://www.highwest.com/ a favorite restaurant of our for the last several years since recommended to us by my brother and his wife who frequent there. Dave and I don't drink, which seems a bit of an oxymoron since this is a distillery after all. But it is a foodies dream. The menu isn't extensive, but it is so carefully put together, and uses many local sources and changes seasonally. (Which to me is both frustrating and thrilling at the same time, you have your heart set on one thing, it's not on the menu this time but just wait to be wowed by what you'll have this time!)

Our appetizer of blistered/battered Shishito peppers

Dave had a burger with a blend of Bison & Beef, HW Pickles, Barrel Ash Cheddar, Onion Jam on a house made bun, and the house fries (beyond delicous)

I ordered French Onion Soup. That's not what the menu called it, but I can't remember the fancy terms. I do however appreciate the fried sage leaf garnish on top. I actually think I could eat a whole bowl of those! We ordered the appetizer of a caramel popcorn/cashew/bacon/cayenne for a treat for the ride home. (ate it too fast to take a pic! woops!)

When nothing else in the world seems to make sense, getting out in nature and eating good food always does.

What is it they say about "Cold Hands...warm heart?" Maybe it's "Full tummy....warm coat....happy heart" (I'm grateful for the elastic wrist-bands, but if anyone ever asks me about this coat, you can be sure they're going to hear that once upon a time, my Mama sewed me a Frostline Kit Coat.