Happy Snow
Blizzards make me happy. We had a good one 12/26. Started snowing in the morning, continued all day, with increasing winds. Predicted well in advance, so Jazz's sleep study was cancelled. We phoned a theater and were surprised to hear they were staying open, so in the spirit of Foolishness Loves Company, we all headed over for a 3pm showing of Harry Potter. Had the theater to ourselves, even better since it was Route One Cinema Pub, where the theater is full of tables and chairs and they serve you dinner during the show. So we ate yummy fried food and watched a movie we'd meant to see weeks ago. And then drove slowly, carefully, and safely home through near-whiteout conditions, which brought out my Chicago-driver pride.
So 12/27 was a day to stay inside and enjoy the blizzard aftereffects. About two feet of snow, which I shoveled with a fair amount of pleasure (not all of it of course -- that would have been much less fun --just enough to excavate one car should we need it, and some very satisfying canyon/paths). Beat the snow off of some tree branches so they'd stop looking like the whole massive tree was about to keel over onto the house, enjoyed watching the birds mob the bird feeders, baked some of the cookie dough leftover from the Cookie Baking party, made cheese (yes, cheese!), and played Mah Jongg.
Of course there are downsides to blizzards. Maritza had to work Sunday evening and then Monday morning, so she either had multiple miserable bus rides or had to spend the night. The snow may have killed or substantially damaged a lot of my garden -- the lilac bush, now crushed into the koi pond, looks particularly sad. Getting the massive trash cans to the front was a difficult slog. Huh. That's all I can think of, in our immediate sphere (of course there's stranded travelers and any number of miserable strangers out there). So, all in all, I still love blizzards.
And if it hasn't been clear from my growing list of hobbies, being a Luddite makes me happy. This year I have totally embraced knitting socks and useful things. I learned to make soap. We raised bees and got honey. We have been raising chickens for eggs and meat, and this year did a turkey (not an experiment we care to repeat, esp. since we're now faced with the challenge of how to prepare and eat a 46-lb turkey). And now we're making cheese. Steve got me an intro cheese kit and book for Holiday, and we parallel-played with it yesterday (we've found we don't work together on things very well, but tag-team beautifully). He made feta, I tried gouda. Both of course have to age a bit before we see if we're successful, but I do have a very cheese-looking blob sitting under 20lbs of weights in the kitchen now. And the byproducts were already successful -- good cheese or not, I find I really like whey! We both tried cooking it into something like ricotta (via different recipes), and that worked fairly well. The book referred to it as just a drink in itself, chock full of protein and such. So I sipped it and it was nice, and then added some cocoa powder (just one scoop -- 1/4 the usual amount), and it was wonderful. So now I love whey cocoa.
Hope everyone else is having a happy holiday week as well!
So 12/27 was a day to stay inside and enjoy the blizzard aftereffects. About two feet of snow, which I shoveled with a fair amount of pleasure (not all of it of course -- that would have been much less fun --just enough to excavate one car should we need it, and some very satisfying canyon/paths). Beat the snow off of some tree branches so they'd stop looking like the whole massive tree was about to keel over onto the house, enjoyed watching the birds mob the bird feeders, baked some of the cookie dough leftover from the Cookie Baking party, made cheese (yes, cheese!), and played Mah Jongg.
Of course there are downsides to blizzards. Maritza had to work Sunday evening and then Monday morning, so she either had multiple miserable bus rides or had to spend the night. The snow may have killed or substantially damaged a lot of my garden -- the lilac bush, now crushed into the koi pond, looks particularly sad. Getting the massive trash cans to the front was a difficult slog. Huh. That's all I can think of, in our immediate sphere (of course there's stranded travelers and any number of miserable strangers out there). So, all in all, I still love blizzards.
And if it hasn't been clear from my growing list of hobbies, being a Luddite makes me happy. This year I have totally embraced knitting socks and useful things. I learned to make soap. We raised bees and got honey. We have been raising chickens for eggs and meat, and this year did a turkey (not an experiment we care to repeat, esp. since we're now faced with the challenge of how to prepare and eat a 46-lb turkey). And now we're making cheese. Steve got me an intro cheese kit and book for Holiday, and we parallel-played with it yesterday (we've found we don't work together on things very well, but tag-team beautifully). He made feta, I tried gouda. Both of course have to age a bit before we see if we're successful, but I do have a very cheese-looking blob sitting under 20lbs of weights in the kitchen now. And the byproducts were already successful -- good cheese or not, I find I really like whey! We both tried cooking it into something like ricotta (via different recipes), and that worked fairly well. The book referred to it as just a drink in itself, chock full of protein and such. So I sipped it and it was nice, and then added some cocoa powder (just one scoop -- 1/4 the usual amount), and it was wonderful. So now I love whey cocoa.
Hope everyone else is having a happy holiday week as well!