Burlington Bake Shoppe Date.

I am listening to early morning commuters driving through the fresh snow that fell last night - and to my two cat's endless mewing outside my bedroom door for breakfast. If I was working today, I would still be asleep, having found the perfect sleeping position in the last fifteen minutes before my first alarm sounded. But this is my first sick day of Twenty-Fourteen, and I'm wide awake at 600am, sprawled out with a smatter of used tissues before me - and, strangely, a little thrilled because I don't have to wait until after work to share a few photographs from our weekend date.

With no diet-restricting resolutions to keep us away, on Saturday we went to Kelly's Bake Shoppe in Burlington to indulge in their sugary-sweet specialty baked goods (vegan, gluten-free, organic). Sweets aren't normally my cup of tea, but with bakeries as adorable as Kelly's (and when you have a particularly sweet-toothed husband), who can resist. It must be a right of passage into adulthood to suddenly find independent bakeries - and paying what seems an exorbitant amount for a cupcake - this appealing. No regrets.





We couldn't choose between the endless selection of cupcakes, so we agreed on the Mile High Brownie (which Sacha bought for me on my birthday last summer, yum), one toasted coconut donut (my cup of tea exactly), and one sugar donut. Heavens, they were good.


In my usual pattern, there has been little to tempt me outdoors this winter beyond the unseasonably sunny days, work, and the necessity for groceries. In previous years, our rut starts as soon as the sun sets at dinnertime, and temperatures drop below 0. But, with the aid of our first car (which we purchased a few weeks ago) we've managed to go on a date each week this year. Somehow ventures like braving the ice cold Lake Ontario wind (which made my eyes cry involuntarily on our walk) don't seem as unbearable when I know I can drive home in heated luxury.