Waffles, snow and homebrewing

Saturday morning we looked out our front door and found this:A big ole snow storm blew through Central PA on Friday night we got about 28 inches of snow. But, fear not, we were prepared. I made certain we were stocked with food and drink to make it through a weekend at home.

We knew that Saturday was going to be a whole a lot of snow-moving, so a hearty breakfast was definitely in order. Homemade buttermilk waffles topped with a apricot preserves and bacon sounds about right.


Now properly fed, my sweetie got to work shoveling our walk and getting his truck mostly free while I cleaned up the breakfast dishes and took our very antsy dog out for a walk.

Unfortunately, with snow up to his tummy, he wasn't feeling very comfortable taking care of business... alas. Our whole neighborhood was out in full force using their snow throwers, shoveling snow, plowing snow, but still in a very chipper mood. Mick got lots of attention, so he was happy.

I took over the shoveling duty and Tyler took a walk with Mick and he made really good progress, but here's what we were working with:
Yes, that's my little Toyota Matrix. So after about another two or three hours, we had both our cars free of snow and had shoveled out our neighbors as well.

My little valentine's day gift for hubs arrived on Friday afternoon (pre-blizzard) thus continuing my streak as best wife on the planet. For Christmas this year I purchased him a homebrew kit to make his own beer. And now we are about a week away from having a batch of homemade lager. But, hub is not much a of lager man, honestly, he's more into the IPA's, occasionally the Belgians. So I purchased this for him:
The "refill kit" with supplies to produce four more batches of beer. This means, he'll be spending a lot more time brewing in the kitchen and bottling in the basement. This will probably induce the purchase of another keg to be used for fermentation. But, what can I tell ya, I just want my guy to be happy.

I'll be wearing my gold star for awesomeness this weekend when we're enjoying MY valentine's day gift of a getaway to Connecticut. Yippee! And the plans are really coming together!

We're staying here:
At the Scranton Seahorse Inn in Madison, CT and I made dinner reservations at a place very nearby. It's going to be great!

And now we are watching the final minutes tick away on the Super Bowl. I really don't mind either team, but at the moment it looks like the Saints are going to take this one home. So, congrats NOLA! You all certainly deserve a win. Though I admit, I love my Peyton and am a little sad for him.

That being said, CONGRATS WHO DAT NATION!

Puppies!!!

Puppy Bowl is maybe the most adorable thing in the world and it airs this Sunday beginning at 3 pm. In case you are not familiar with the concept, 20 little rescue pups are put on a little fake football field with toy footballs and rope toys and they play. They play with each other, the run around, they roll and tumble with each other and it's precious. Like make me giggle with delight precious!

As special bonus for me, a member of the starting lineup looks just like my man Mick did when he was a pup. Oh the memories. Here he is, Carson of the Puppy Bowl, in all his preciousness.
Is that a little lump you could just squeeze or what?

And here's what they grow up to be:
Like how he has himself wrapped around that pole? He's an expert at that, but what can I say, he's mine.

Here are some of my other favs in the starting line-up. All adorable and all up for adoption.




Which leads us to my plug for pet adoption. If you are considering getting a pet, please consider adoption. While I have friends who have gotten lovely pets from breeders, there is something intangibly grateful about an animal rescued from a shelter. They know that you saved them, and they're so, so loving in return.

And don't forget to check out the Puppy Bowl this Super Bowl Sunday at 3 pm on Animal Planet. It'll be all the cuteness you can stand.

Lunch Hour Confessions: Part Deux

Remember Bobby Salesguy? My gregarious co-worker from my first installment of Lunch Hour Confessions? The one who is cheez-wiz personified? Well he has struck again today, much to my disdain.

The only thing that is cheering me up at the moment is the fact that I'm working on a Disability Insurance case for a guy named Rusty Nipple. No kidding, that's his name. The jokes that have come from this have been my salvation from Bobby Salesguy and helped me to repress urges to poke him in the eye with my letter opener!

So here's the deal. I am on my lunch hour (thus the title), enjoying my healthy choice chicken and rice soup and yogurt feast, reading the blogs I occasionally read when I left my book in the car and simultaneously writing an email to a friend. Here comes Bobby S. all fired up off some great sale or something stupid, into my cube to look over my shoulder to no only READ MY EMAIL, but asks EXACTLY WHAT I'M LOOKING AT ONLINE. What is that?

I give some explanation to him of what I'm looking at, as I eye my letter opener, on my lunch break and tell him "You are the nosiest person I've ever met." This then solicits a slew of apologies, ranging from, "I'm not going to steal your soup" to "I didn't mean to invade your space." You can't help but tell someone it's ok when they grovel like that! But in truth, it's not ok. Because this nearly fifty-year-old man has not learned ANYTHING from this interaction.

He didn't learn that he was wrong to pry into my private email (not sent from the company address) or that when you are on your lunch break, eating in ze cube (depressing) because you forgot your freggin book, maybe you should just be left in peace.

RAWR! Sometimes it'd be nice to have a dinosaur-like roar that you could let out at moments like this. Bobby Salesguy would soil himself.

Snooooow Daaaayy!

On Wednesdays and Fridays, I am off work and free to pursue whatever my little heart desires. As I said earlier today, it snowed last night, so Mick and I ventured out to take some pretty snowy pictures.

It was also time for a Mickdog photoshoot as I have not taken many pictures of him lately. He is my furry son and means the world to me (I could go on regarding my devotion to my boy and maybe I will later) and so I am remiss for not taking more sweet, candid photos. I righted the situation this morning by taking no less than 20 action shots.

Here are the highlights of Mick/our walk together:

This is what happens when you walk a hound dog. You sniff and sniff and sniff.

Me and my main man, little sweetheart and best pal. I love my dog!

On a side note, can anyone tell me why my pics sometimes post with giant spaces between them? What gives?

A Waltz for a Snowy Day

Though the weatherfolks were only predicting an inch or so of snow to fall last night in our area, we actually got around 4-5 inches. Yippeee! Winter wonderland day :)

I know I live in the Northeast now and should really not be so excited over a snowy day, but what can I say, it still feels new sometimes!

So, while I'm out playing in the fluffy, white snow, here's a waltz for the morning. I just love this song!




Snow pictures to come, should anything strike me as lovely, which I'm sure it will.

Short and Sweet

Wooowww. I got a bit long-winded yesterday. It was a lot of describe, but geesh. I'm such a geef. (that's not a typo, it's a word I invented... geef. Use it.)

So, today I'm keeping this one short n' sweet. Remember that trip to Connecticut I was talking about taking earlier this month? I decided that throwing it together with less than a week's notice, while fun and spontaneous, is also majorly more expensive. So, it's on the books for Valentine's Day weekend.

The hub and I aren't big Valentine's Day people, however. This will mark the second time we've ever done something besides give one another card. We're not big on gifts, so I consider this trip our gift to each other.

Very exciting! I've got calls into this little inn and this little inn and a couple of other too. It's going to be a short getaway, but still a getaway. And a big plus, if all goes well, I will be checking one destination off my 2010 list. I hope it snows while we're there... lots and lots.

Do you celebrate Valentine's Day? If so, how do you shower the ones you love with affection or do you throw up the finger at the very mention of "VD?"

*photo source

The weekend that was..

Thanks to Toothpastefordinner.com for this morsel

What a weird weekend! Looking back to Friday it feels like it was really long and normally that's a great thing and means that I had an awesome weekend, full of fun and generally little sleep.

But this was a different weekend. Friday I was home basically the whole day. I didn't accomplish much, but sometimes that's a good day. Friday night, we wento Cafe Bruge, in Carlisle, PA.

This is our favorite place by far in Central PA. We love to sit at the bar and chat with owner/bartender Garrett and scarf up the amazing food. An order of frites to start is a must, the rest our menu changes every visit. This time we had stoemp saucisse. Yum!!


Saturday, I completed my volunteer shift from 10 - 1 at the Susquehanna Art Museum and proceeded to have a meltdown on the way home. Over nothing! I'm blaming it solely on hormones. The meltdown took about an hour, from during my drive home and then the comforting from my befuddled husband.*

Saturday afternoon, is a complete blank for me? What did I do? I know we took the dog for a walk, but what else? I'm not sure. Saturday night we drove to Hershey to go to dinner at a place we like, called Houlihan's. Unfortunately, most of the residents of Hershey had the same idea. So, we drove around a bit till we found The Chocolate Avenue Grill. We went in with no expectations and found a very nice place to share a Saturday night! We started with the best spanikopita I have ever had and ended with a slice of lemon marscapone cake. My man had the steak special that came with sweet potato fries (his fav) and a giant tree of steamed broccoli. And I had the seared tuna encrusted in sesame and poppy seeds and a strawberry, papaya salsa. Delish!

So Saturday started with tears and ended with cake. A pretty good save!

Sunday was interesting! We ventured to Ski Roundtop to try our hands at skiing. I was excited all the way there and ready for the challenge! I was armed with all the advice and tips from friends and blogfriends alike. We got there, bought our passes, rented our equipment and lined up under the sign stating "First Time Skiers" and waited for our instructor.

Keith was his name and he was extremely helpful and knowledgeable and led us through a two-hour course on turning and sort of stopping and proper stance and proper pole position and side stepping up the mountain. It was all positive! I fell only once during our two hour class and didn't even a bad one. My butt didn't touch the ground.

I did however, manage to impale myself with my own ski pole while we were on the kiddo lift. Some lady hit the emergency stop button (so she could get the perfect shot of her lil angel exiting the lift) throwing everyone on the lift forward at the exact moment that I had my head down to put my glove in my pocket. There was a little blood and swelling. But I was being a trooper, no biggie! Still going to be a great day on the slopes!

After our class we decided to head down the bunny slope one more time just for good measure and did it successfully, gliding towards the chair lift up to the "easy" slope. We took the lift with a five-year old and her dad who told me the trick to skiing was just to "follow your Daddy and do what he does." I looked at my husband, who was not comfortable with this label, but it generally much more adept and athletic. He would have to be my Daddy.

Time to get off the lift and.... fall. Fall #1 was a simple tangling of poles and not standing up soon enough. Ok... back up! Hubs asked if I was ready, I said "No, but if I don't go down now, I won't go at all."

And we're off, skiing, building speed, losing control and... fall. This was the big one. My right knee was contorted behind me in a very unpleasant way. Trying to get up... fall. Thinking and saying out loud, "Why didn't they teach us how to fall and not kill ourselves? People die doing this? Why wouldn't they teach us?" I managed to get myself over to a poll (it was padded, thank goodness) and get my skis off. I then walked up the hill, and let the nice man from the ski patrol sled me down the hill.

Was this humiliating? Yes. Could I have skied down that hill? Probably not and walked away under my own control.

So, what happened? I was in control of myself earlier, where did it all go wrong? I'll tell you where: panic. I have a teensy tendency to panic when things go awry. So when I started going fast, all my previous skills like turning myself to slow down went OUT THE WINDOW.

I skied the bunny slope a few more times, feeling much less than confident. Then decided that's about enough for one day and took the skis off for good.

Today, I'm nursing a wonky right knee (it'll heal, I'm pretty sure) and a little cut on my very sore jaw. I am undeterred, however. I will go back to try it again in the future. I might even spring for a one-on-one lesson as I am not ashamed to say that I may be a challenging case.

It looks like so much fun for those who can do it! My husband had a great time and said that he feels he would enjoy it much more with me along. There's motivation right there!

And now here we are at Monday morning. I feel like that weekend had to be at least five days and I'm pooped.

*In my defense, we are experiencing the arrival of some major life changes. And while things are very exciting, they're also a little scary. Scary life changes + hormones = teary meltdown