Snow Pictures

Even though I am definitely ready for the end of all this cold and snow (mostly cause our woodpile is running low...and it will be very cold in our house once that runs out), I absolutely love the way it makes the farm look.

Cool color accent. Only picking up the pink in this sunset. Lovely

Full color is pretty lovely too

Icicles and a silo, on an artistic angle. Nice.

Pretty pink, and a spiffy tree.

More of the same.

There is soooooo much sky out here!

The name of "my" farm*.

*It's not really mine. I just live here. Alll of the benefits. None of the property taxes. Yay!

Snow - Geese

Ironically, and yet somehow, wonderfully appropriately, with the coming of snow, came the Snow Geese. The geese before this were an assortment of geese. Some Snow Geese, some Canadian Geese. Mostly just a lot of geese.

I have not seen them in a while, but they have returned. And there are just as many of them as ever.

They are still really cool.

Grown Up Snow

You know you are grown up when this:

no longer looks like a winter wonderland.

Instead it looks like a cold, wet, disaster waiting to happen, that undoubtedly you will have to drive through because your boss's snow policy is "If its too bad for you to drive, we will come pick you up in our 4-wheel-drive", and because it never snows on the 5 days you work from home, only on the 2 days when you have to make the almost 70 mile drive to work.

And when you spend 2 hours of your Wednesday morning driving on some of the most dangerous roads you have ever seen....you may find yourself trying to remember what it was like to actually look forward to snow.

Maybe one day it will be delightful again.

Until then.....Spring, consider this your invitation to show up whenever. Sooner, rather than later would be amazing.

Though I must confess....it is hard to complain about a snow day that ends like this:

Thermostat

This is primarily how we heat our house:

As previously mentioned, we don't really have a thermostat in the house. So we improvise. The most accurate indicator of the temperature that we have is this:

It's a candle. Well, really, it used to be a candle. Now it is just a glass jar of wax.

It is wonderfully helpful. It sits on top of the stove, and anticipates the temperature of the room. When it is completely liquid (the dark pink), it will soon be very warm in the room. When it starts to solidify again, you know you had better work on the fire, or it is going to get cold soon!

It is not an exact science, but it really is more helpful than you would think.


On a semi-related note....below is a random picture of our thermostat (with me in the background, on the computer, of course). I thought it was weirdly artistic.

Too Cute: Part 5

Marge makes this face while she is sitting in your lap.

She does her best to look like a serious hound dog....while indulging her desire to grow up to be a lap-dog.

It's too cute

Neighbors

One day we will move somewhere, probably into a neighborhood, with real neighbors and such.

But until then, these are my neighbors.

They are not incredibly friendly...

But we amicably ignore each other usually.

Like those kinds of neighbors who typically try to avoid walking to their car at the same time as their neighbor every day lest it get awkward. But who don't mind the occasional exchange of pleasantries if civility requires.

Dinner for a Week

I am very fortunate in many things - but one in particular that pertains to today's post is that Mon Amour will eat just about anything that I serve him - new recipes, leftovers, frozen dinners, whatever, he will eat it. It makes things easy in the dinner department. It is also convenient that there are only 2 of us, it doesn't take much to make enough to have left overs.

As a result of all of these fun things, I never actually have to make 7 dinners a week. Usually I make about 4 per week. This past week though was super sweet....I made 2 meals, and they have lasted us all week long.

I made both meals on Sunday.

First I made Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup. An amazing recipe that makes a TON of soup.
Simultaneously I made pizza. (I love homemade pizza dough)

I made a little more dough than I normally do, mostly cause I wanted a thick crust. But the result was that we had Pizza for dinner on Sunday, and still had 1 huge pizza left over.

Combine that with an almost literal ton of soup, and visiting a friend or two for dinner (and yes, its true, food someone else makes DOES taste better), I haven't had to think about dinner for a solid week.

Even though I love to cook, it has been fabulous.