Varykino!

If anyone is a fan of the movie/book Dr. Zhivago... you might remember... Varykino....

I'll set the scene...

After two years, Zhivago trudging through the deep snow to Yuriatin, and finds Lara.

After six months, Lara reveals a letter from Tonya, in which she tells Yuri that she, her father, and Sasha have been deported to Paris, and had met with Lara while searching for the long-lost Yuri.

One night, Komarovsky arrives and informs them they are being watched by the CHEKA due to Lara's marriage to Strelnikov and Yuri's "counter-revolutionary" poetry and desertion. Komarovsky offers Yuri and Lara his help in leaving Russia. They refuse. Instead, they go to the isolated Varykino estate, where Yuri begins writing the "Lara" poems...

  
Varykino...

The inside of the estate as they arrive to take residence...

I think this Winter.. Varykino has nothing on Chicago...here is my window in my office this morning in a balmy 1 degree!

Another view of another window...yes that is ICE my friends!

 The view out the window of our upstairs landing onto the deck....the snow is the deepest it has ever been in 10+ years...

 

This month on the upstairs deck...

This Summer...needless to say...I prefer Summer!!

Although I normally appreciate the beauty, stillness and activities of Winter and I'm not one to normally complain...the coldness and length of this Winter has been grating...and it is only mid January!

Sometimes I feel like Yuri and Lara...restless, claustrophobic and a bit bored...a little like a gerbil in a cage!



So what is my recipe for coping? I am making an effort to find the beauty and make a little fun in every day....like my friend Mademoiselle M who visited the beach on a recent weekend morning...

I bundle up and ski whenever the conditions are right....

 

 

I am also having fun cooking new recipes, catching up on great television programming, visiting new restaurants and places around the city of Chicago and of course...hanging with those I love! I refuse to get a case of the Winter Blahs...I'm fighting hard this year! I also wrote myself a prescription.... that involved the following...lol...

 

 

These warmer destinations...and some old fashion Midwestern grit will get me through! That and daily doses of  imported South African Rooibos tea, with coconut milk and honey! Thank you Mademoiselle D...my South African friend and "sherpa" on all things yummy!

 

 

(Merci': Popular MEchanics.com, www.lassothemovies.com, tamaracincik.com, themuseumofdyinggrants blog, pinterest.com, newcom.mn, caneton.fr, bywaterbnb.com)  

 

XO Emily