In our family, whenever there is a special event, the tradition is to cook a special meal. We all love to celebrate with food—no surprise there—and by cooking at home, we can have something especially tasty yet still be frugal. Our anniversary was last month, but because of the various schedules, Shannon and Mike couldn’t get together with us until yesterday.

We had planned to go to Shannon and Mike’s home in South Portland, but for our anniversary they bought us a special gift—a new rug for our living room—that needed to be transported in their larger car. Our little Honda Fit can hold quite a bit, but there was no way it could haul that rug along with a driver, one passenger, and a dog.

Now, Clif and I are a very thrifty couple. When we buy something, either new or second hand, we squeeze every bit of use out of that item. So it was with our living room rug, which we bought thirty years ago at Sears. I loved that red rug with its oriental design, and it was incredibly sturdy, withstanding kids, pets, and lots of company over the years. But all things have a lifespan, and so it was with this rug, which had become frayed, worn, and thin in many spots.

On Saturday, we rolled up the rug and brought it to the transfer station, and it was a bittersweet moment. I was sorry to see this old friend go, but I have to admit I was excited to be getting a new rug. (So excited that I forgot about a special dessert Shannon was bringing. Very uncharacteristic of me, and more about this later.) When you don’t get many new things, you really appreciate it when you do. And that’s the way it way should be. Between mindless consumerism and the life of of a monk there is a balance.

The new rug—shades of tan with a dark, almost Celtic border—looks oh so nice in our living room. Today, Clif and I have periodically taken a break from our work to admire it. We will have this rug for many, many years, and if it wears as well as the previous rug, it could possibly be our last living room rug. (Funny to think that way, but Clif and I have reached an age where this might be the case.)

For our anniversary meal, Shannon prepared one of the the dishes I love best—Cornish hens with a lemon, herb, and butter mixture tucked under the skin. The hens were moist and flavorful and because they were small, all of the meat was suffused with the herb butter mixture. We had baked potatoes, corn, and sour dough bread to accompany the hens.

Then there was dessert, which Shannon bought from Little Bigs in South Portland. The pastries are called CDs, short for “Cease and Desist,” and they are fried croissants dusted with cinnamon and sugar and cut into squares. The CDs have a hole, and they bear a striking resemblance to an insanely popular New York dessert that apparently must not be named. Hence “Cease and Desist.”  The CDs were crisp on the outside, flaky but not dry, and we promptly munched them down. Good as the CDs were—and they were very good indeed—I must admit that I remain loyal to donuts, one of my favorite desserts. But what fun to try something new that has become a craze in New York City and is now a craze in Portland. CDs have become so popular that Shannon had to order them three or four weeks in advance.

A visit from the kids, a new rug, Cornish hens, and CDs. All in all, a terrific day.

To borrow from the meteorologist Lou McNally—also known as Altitude Lou—March came in like a lion and went out like a mess. At the little house in the big woods, it is sleeting outside. The road is thick with slush, and there is a layer of ice on our car. What a trickster March is, and it couldn’t resist one last icy prank before giving way to April, which I hope will bring better weather. After all, the snow in our yard is bound to melt sometime before July.

Here is what our yard looks like this morning:

There will be plenty of scraping if I do errands, as planned, this afternoon.

In the interest of being fair to March, that long, long, temperamental month, I have to admit it does have its moments of beauty, if you know where to look. The following pictures were taken a few days ago, when the sun was shining, and it was relatively warm, say 45 or so.

Nevertheless, I am certainly ready for April.

Another Day in March. This morning, the thermometer read zero, and there is frost on the windows. Another storm is blowing up the coast, and although there are small patches of blue in the sky, there are plenty of hazy clouds to indicate bad weather is coming. The prediction is that the storm will be mostly coastal, and I am hopeful that central Maine will be spared the worst. Even better would be for the storm to be entirely coastal, as in completely out to sea, but I suppose that is too much to hope for.

On the stove, there are chicken bones simmering with garlic, peppercorns, a bay leaf, salt, and an onion studded with a few cloves. After it has simmered for several hours, the broth will be strained and then go into the slow-cooker to be combined with drippings from a chicken meal we had on Sunday, when I put sweet potatoes under a whole chicken sprinkled with garlic and herbs. When the broth and drippings have simmered for a bit, I will blend the leftover sweet potatoes into the resultant stock and add leftover chicken. Noodles will be cooked separately to add at the last minute, and Clif and I will have some warm soup on this cold March night. I’ll either make biscuit muffins or bran muffins to go with the soup.

While the stock is simmering, there will be a walk in the woods with the dog. There is still plenty of snow in central Maine, and the trail we walk on is packed hard by snowmobiles. It doesn’t feel like spring at all. It still feels like winter. But the days are getting longer, and the birds have begun their spring songs. I tell myself this as I bundle up in my heaviest coat and put on my hat and my heaviest gloves.

In the woods, at the end of the trail, are sap buckets. Unfortunately, it has been too cold for much of a harvest. Nevertheless, those buckets are a cheering presence at the end of what has been a long, hard winter.

Surely warmer weather is just around the corner. Surely spring is coming. Surely sometime before July, the snow will be gone from the yard of the little house in the big woods.

I’m in such a gray funk on this drizzly first day of spring that although there is much I could be doing, I don’t want to do any of it. Quite naturally, my mind turns to chocolate, tea, reading, and a day spent on the couch.

“What in the world?” the Franco-American part of me scolds. “The whole day on the couch? Mon Dieu! Cupboards need to be cleaned, floors need to be vacuumed, and some of the rooms really, really need to be dusted. And have you looked at your closet lately? There are clothes in there that haven’t seen the light of day in years, if not decades. Time to get rid of those darned clothes.”

The foodie part of me also chimes in. “And you know that too much chocolate isn’t good for you. A little yes, but not one of your chocolate fests where those tin wrappers make a tottering pile beside your tea cup.”

“All right, all right,” I mutter. “I won’t spend the day on the couch where I read, eat chocolate, and drink tea.”

As I finish typing that sentence, I look out the window at the rain and the drooping branches. Snow slides with a whoosh from the roof. The road is thick with slush, and there will be no walk in the woods today. The dog will be restless tonight, and I know how he feels. In, in, in. We have been indoors for too long, and we want to be outdoors. It’s funny how well matched the dog and I are. On a nice day in the summer, we both could spend the day outdoors from dawn to dusk. And I mean this literally.

Around this time of year, a snow-free yard, a sunny day, and picking up branches and twigs start looking good. Indoor chores, not so much, even though there are plenty of them.

The snow will melt, but that day seems to be some time in the distant future. Intellectually, I know this isn’t true, that by the end of April, the ground will be bare, the mud should mostly be gone, and there will be a flush of green.

But the reality of now, of March, of cold gray, almost overcomes the imagination.

Well, maybe just one cup of tea and a few chocolates. And a chapter or two.

After all, those chores aren’t going anywhere.