Yesterday the weather turned warm (again). I went out on the front porch to find sunlight glistening on the grass. I fetched a pair of scissors and cut a single rose from the corner bush and a curve of rosemary that had started to bloom.

Back inside I gathered my silver tray, some incense and a scrap of bread. In Bali, the people prepare offerings to the gods every morning. Every morning, they place a flower, some incense and a small ball of rice on a leaf. Every morning, after a short prayer, they leave the offering on the steps to their house or on the sidewalk.

In the larger hotels and other business establishments, they have people whose job it is to walk through the building with these offerings. I light my incense and walk through my house, circling each room. I look anew at the familiar surroundings and give thanks. Give thanks for the shelter, for the beauty, for the family I love.

In the kitchen, I stop and give special thanks for the roses dear husband gave me for Valentine’s Day. Their pale coral warms the seafoam of the kitchen walls.

When I have finished, I take the tray and leave it on the porch floor, at the top of the stairs. In a short while, the sun will reach it and sun will glint off the silver, steal through the petals.

Tuesday night I went to a women’s new moon celebration. I came almost straight from work but arrived very late. I did take time to put on a saffron shalwar kameez, with turquoise and purple embroidery at the hem of the bouffant pants, a sheer purple and silver skirt, and a belt of silver jingles. I knew I would arrive near the closing ceremony, I tell one woman, but I came anyway, just so I could wear my costume.

The room was lit with candles, the altar laid with a maroon sari, flecked with gold. A small tortoise shell has a place of honor. Women dance with scarves. I am sorry to have missed the chanting.

Leaving, the wind catches and brings back to me the scent of my perfume, Casimir. I feel a fine rain upon my face.

It warmed up nearly 30 degrees overnight. This meant that the morning was foggy. When I went out to get the paper, the street light, a replica of the old-fashioned gas lights, glowed softly behind the neighbor’s tropical plant. Three palm-like trunks silhouetted against a yellow mist, their leaves dangling like swords.

This morning was a “special breakfast.” Croissants, son the elder’s favorite, and sweet, milky coffee, special to son the younger.

On the drive to school, the trees and bushes in the distant park glistened silver in the light of the rising sun.

Home again, I stopped at the front gate, listening to the sound of the earth awakening.

The cold wave continues and I find it hard to change out of my fleece jammies. They are in fact my dance pants but since they have little white lambs on them, it is clear someone thinks they are jammies.

I make a coloring page with a bear in a tutu and type on it “We’re crackers for Ms Claire’s dance class!” I take the coloring pages and some animal crackers to all my classes. The children spy them the moment they walk into class and their eyes grow bright. We wag our tails like dogs, arch our backs like cats, and float our arms like swans. At class end, they fall over themselves like puppies, eager for their gifts.

Two days later it is the weekly “donut day” at our house. I get out my Christmas gift from the boys: a china cup and small china plate. They are pink with an sophisticated black cat on the side and, near the handle, two small black paw prints. Reading the morning paper, I drink my hot tea and eat my chocolate glazed donut with rainbow sprinkles.

Upstairs, the children tumble and jump. Outside, the wind blows and trees bend.

My Christmas tree this year was especially beautiful. The blinking lights I bought the year I did Christmas for my mother, the year she was diagnosed with cancer. There are ten or twelve settings, including “running,” blinking and a slow fade. There are three spools of a dark burgundy and gold ribbon. Two spools wind around the tree. The other spool is shared between the garland over the front door and the garland over the arch between living and dining rooms.

I also used some of this ribbon to make a new bow for my front door wreath. I buy a fresh cedar and pine wreath every year, adding my bow and the bell that used to hang on my grandmother’s back door every Christmas season. Her door “stuck” a little so that the rough push needed to open it always sent the bell crazy, chiming the announcement of every arrival. Now it is my front door, and the push needed to close it, that sets the bell to dancing.

Over the years, of course, I have collected ornaments. There are the cinnamon dough stars that the boys and I made many years ago, still smelling faintly of spice. There are the gold and clear plastic suns, announcing the return of the Sun. There are the orange slices I dried for one of the first Christmas trees after my return to the States. There are the golden glitter beads I bought in Europe.

A few years back I went lavish and bought boxes of ornaments in coffee, mocha, and burnt orange. And last year began a new tradition: an ornament gifting which has netted us four new ornaments in the past two years: cowboy boots, a cactus, an elephant, and a suitcase. The golden browns and deep greens complement the tree and the images pique our imaginations.

In the New Year, we pulled up the arbor that has held up our climbing rose bush these past twelve years. For the first time, March will not bring small white roses to our side yard. Soon, we will have a “moon gate” and new plants. But for now, there is a patch of dark soil and a clear view of the iris.

Soon, too, there will be a new bike rack and four bikes ready for use. But for now the bikes live on the back deck or in our living room. We bike the neighborhood, checking out old warehouses and new construction. Our cheeks grow rosy as even in Houston, the air holds a chill. We bike to Starbucks, and then home, where waits for us the Sunday New York Times, and in the evening, another episode of Black Adder.

“Sir,” son the younger tells me the next morning, “I have a cunning plan….”