On the scale from 1 to things only I care about, I FINALLY added the French keyboard back to my new phone and it's such a relief to have my auto correct recognize les mots français et ne cherche pas à les changer.... Sometimes the suggestions would be entertaining, but mostly it was just a constant nuisance battle having to verify and retype and reverify until it got it right. Should have done it immediately. Life is so much better when I may think in French and write en franglais to my heart's content!!! 

Also.

On the scale from 1 to hygge, after taking the dog on a walk during the warmest/sunniest part of the day (which was also overlapping the golden hour) I came home to make a cuppa tea, put on George Winston songs, make some home made veggie lasagna (noodle and sauce weren't home made but the onion, carrot, radish, bok choy, and ricotta filling was), and laid a fire in the fireplace. The cat is very pleased with the fire and I was very pleased he was more intent on basking by the fire than trying to thwart the guard dog to enter the kitchen to sneak lasagna while it cooled. (The house rule is they're not allowed to cross into the tiles of the kitchen unless invited to help clean up a mess and then they're very hesitant to obey the invitation. But cat is gonna cat and he's been known to sneak into the kitchen and thieve things off counters when all humans and tattle tale dogs are in other rooms. So leaving something to cool unattended is a risk if you don't know exactly where he is, lol.) I will likely make some sparkly rainbow snickerdoodle cookies later. If not tonight, in the near future. Ian put the idea in my head on Monday when I brought in sparkly rainbow chocolate chip cookies to work and I've been craving snickerdoodle cookies ever since, lol.

I promised the crows when we got back from the walk to keep the fire burning in the hearth for them tonight. Their nests are in a small wooded area along the boundary of our buildings and then there's a tall tree at the end of the walk in the open area by the other door which they like as it gets the first rays of sunlight and the last rays of sunlight in the top of it from which they can both guard their nests and watch my door and my balcony so they can follow me on my walks with Audrey. So that tree is often full of crows and it's where I leave snacks for them (or the chipmunks. Whoever finds it first, lol.). Anyway, I do have an arrangement with my crows that they may warm themselves by chimney and I'll try to have a fire going whenever it's stupid cold outside BUT they're not allowed to try to come down the chimney, let anyone build nests inside it, or gift me things via the chimney instead of left on the balcony. They got very cold last night/this morning while I slept rather than having a fire going so I promised them to keep the fire burning for them to warm up throughout the night and morning. It's very cute -- you can see them snuggled up and fluffed all around the base of my chimney when I have the fire going. Sometimes they'll caw down the chimney (but not enter it) to ask me if I could please put their heater on. I can also hear them rustle and happy caw chatter to each other and to me sometimes while my fire is going. 

I had pictures to share of my hygge-ish evening keeping "house at hame" but upload dialogue box isn't loading properly. Perhaps I'll remember to share the pictures later. (But also I may ADHD brain about it....) And I'm done messing with trying to get it to work getting irked by it not working. My inner peace is worth more than sharing pictures right this moment. Also, I wish to return to reading Daniel Defoe's A Journal of the Plague Year now that I finished the Vignaux. (The chapter on John Duns Scotus and William Ockham were better than the other chapters.)  I've never actually read this particular Defoe novel before, though I found a used Penguin edition of it several years ago. The 18th century fictional account of  the great plague in London was brought up as a secondary account of what London was like during plague times in a book I read not too long ago on the black death. It's fictional, it swept through London when Defoe was 5, but it was meticulously early journalism researched from his living primary resources which we no longer have. So it's fictional but full of statistics and real life experiences/anecdotes of what people went through. So it's been on my mind I should read the Defoe novel. I had packed it for my Seattle area trip in December, which made my brother-in-law laugh at my gallows humor in that choice when he was looking through my stacks of books I had with me. But in the end I felt it too dark and gory visceral détails for my time I had with them all. So I promised myself to tbr stack it not put it away until after I read it.

 Anyway. Even without pictures, I had intended to include. There's a happy hygge post for you all about me spending my evening cozyed up with a crackling fire in the hearth, home cooked comfort foods, piano music a very large mug of tea, books, snuggly fur babies, and happy crow friends kept warm while protecting me. That's exactly the image you should have me throughout the night, lol  

P. S. 10:10pm addendum: 

Just got back inside from taking the dog out. O the waning gibbous is gorgeous tonight!!!! 😍 Just a few days past full, and all the stars are so twinkly blue in the purple-black skies, extra bright because the air is so clear from the cold!! But also, I love having a fire in the hearth waiting to greet me and warm me up nights when it's -1F outside! Time to open the glass on the fireplace (I close it whenever I need to take the dog out and have a fire going, in case of sparks and/or the cat getting too close) and relight the candles (also in case of cat accidents, open flames and felines in the same room when you leave the promises are a bad idea.)  Large moons in clear starry skies, happy animal familiars, little tame flames in hearth and wax, a still hot mug of tea, piano music, and a book to get lost in. *happy sigh* I do love a good cozy introvert recharge night at home!