three month break ... whoops! what's happened in the interim, since september? a lot!
on the matson front:
- he started eating solids
- he started crawling
- he started standing up
- he started taking steps (only while holding onto something, so far)
- he started seperation anxiety (yaay)
- he started jabbering a lot more and saying "dada" constantly (pretty sure he doesn't know what it means yet)
- he discovered his love for christmas lights
- he started taking showers with daddy instead of baths, which is basically as great as a water park when you're 8 months old
on the me and scott front:
- scott finished his first semester of his mba - hooray! he just finished last night and doesn't have his final grades back yet, but i'll be pretty shocked if he didn't get straight a's. so proud!
- scott went to men's retreat for church, which meant he was gone for a whole weekend. which means that i survived a whole weekend with mats on my own!
- we got our first artificial christmas tree. the weather was too bad to go cut a tree the weekend we had set aside to do so, and i decided i was tired of paying for an overpriced lot tree on the years we couldn't go to the forest, so we found a nice fake tree on craigslist.
- i finished my first "semester" at mops and women's bible study and am loving both so far.
- i made myself take a break from saver's - it's just too easy to find so many things to buy there! for the time being, i can only go when i have something concrete i need to look for (personal favorite: picture frames).
and what's happening with us now?
- scott just finished his semester last night at about 10:30pm (online test), so we celebrate! we're going to look at christmas lights with goo and her boyfriend, grant, tonight. scott is very excited to have a poker night tomorrow. christmas party at a friend from nourish's on saturday. and $5 movie and a fancy dinner out (via a giftcard that scott's first boss left in his desk when he left the company, which a coworker found when cleaning out the desk, and then gave to scott because we live way closer to the restaurant than do she and her husband - very generous!) on sunday evening while mats hangs out with the macauleys.
- finishing up christmas shopping and wrapping so that i can get gifts shipped out asap.
- flying out to illinois to see my parents for christmas.
- re-doing our kitchen! scott said that we can look at updating our kitchen as our christmas present to ourselves (which we've been wanting to do since we moved in), so just yesterday i started looking at all of that. the cabinets themselves are still nice, but i want new cabinet doors. i'm debating painting the cabinets vs leaving them wood, and looking at all kinds of counter options - mostly corian vs laminate at this point. (granite's out because it's so non-renewable and it makes me sad when we're out hiking over granite boulders to think of people stripping those away from the ground.)
and more immediately:
- i need to paint a bunch of picture frames. i'm bummed that i slacked on this last month when it was still nice out, because it's chilly enough outside now that i have to clear out my laundry room, lay out tarps, and spray paint inside rather than in my back yard.
- i finally bought myself a sander and need to start using it! first on the list: refinishing our chipped up cheapo coffee and end tables. next up: refinish a cool old dresser that i got on craigslist and put wheels on it - sideboard for the dining room that can easily be wheeled 10 feet over into the kitchen as a moveable island when needed!
- finish washing matson's diapers.
- go grocery shopping. i resolved to not buy meat the month of december so that we can start using up some of the 1/4 cow of grass fed beef that we have in the basement freezer, and the pounds upon pounds of chicken breast that i've been stocking up on all fall since it's been so cheap - $1.67/lb some weeks! i bought chicken wings last weekend per scott's request because we had a friend over to watch football, but other than that, so far so good!
- figure out why the little man is squeaking rather than sleeping.
Showing posts with label winter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label winter. Show all posts
i want sunshine
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labels:
photography,
summer,
winter
in honor of denver's second winter storm warning in a week (5-10 inch forecast this time), i am officially looking forward to summer! we still haven't made any plans or reservations yet (but it is only march), but i am researching. the three specific things that have me excited for warmth and sun:
- my parents got me a subscription to outdoor photographer magazine*, and the april edition has a fabulous article about the national parks. there are some beautiful pictures, and it reminded me of all the fun we had exploring our lovely state last summer (even though we didn't hit up any national parks). and, it got me excited to play with my lovely new-to-me nikon d50 this summer.
- today i was reading an article about the rockslide on i-70 up in the mountains, and it mentioned its proximity to the hanging lake exit, which reminded me that scott and i have wanted to go hike hanging lake for the last four and a half years, which reminded me that we want to get daypacks since both of us are still rocking the jansport college backpack, and then THAT reminded me that i need to figure out the daypack/dslr thing. the daypack/dslr is slightly challenging only in that i want to have water and normal daypack stuff - layers, food - in my pack in addition to my dslr and maybe an extra lense, but a lot of packs i was initially seeing were these $200 monstrosities with spots for the huge pro-size camera bodies and like 5+ lenses, and that's just not my style. so i've been shopping around online for packs, and i think i'm coming up with some good options, including getting a neoprene pouch for the camera and just putting that in a normal daypack. anyway, back to why this gets me excited for summer - bike rides and hikes and camping will all be enjoyed much more with more appropriate gear ... plus i'll get to play with my lovely nikon d50!
- daydreaming about where we'll go this year - i think i've mentioned before that we've talked about yellowstone, durango, and aspen among others. i also want to go to the black canyon of the gunnison, and to the grand junction area, and and and ... i think we've mostly nixed the long distance travel vacations for this year, which i'm fine with - i'm looking forward to road tripping around the region!
the hail state
well, we had the roof guy out yesterday, and things didn't go quite as planned. we showed him the flashing in the back, but as we had also asked for an estimate on the whole roof, he set up his ladder up front and started looking around. i think he'd been up there less than a minute before he came down, knocked on the front door, and asked if we knew that we had hail damage. um, i'm going to go with no on that one. well, apparently we do. the good news is that that's the kind of thing homeowner's insurance covers, so i'm going to call them in the morning and find out what we need to do to get that process started, getting an adjustor out and all that. apparently in addition to the loose flashing, though, we had some loose nails higher up that were likely letting in water, so there's a large-ish area of the roof that might need some work done ... yikes. we have our fingers crossed about insurance panning out, but nothing's guaranteed yet. (did you know that colorado is one of the biggest states for hail damage? california has earthquakes, oklahoma has tornadoes, and colorado has hail. sweet.)
as the roofer was on top of the house, scott and i were inside talking, and found the situation quickly escalating. we had him out to look at a piece of loose flashing, and it looks like we may need a whole new roof. scott pulled out the piece of wood we had meant to cut down and paint to replace a missing slat in the front shutters, and i mentioned that you can actually buy new vinyl shutters for less than $40/pair at home depot. we were discussing the merits of that when scott asked if the color match on paint would be close enough ... which led me to mention that we really need to get our trim re-painted at some point, as it's, well, ugly in general, and really peeling on the gutters ... oh, and by the way, the gutters leak, so we'll need to think about replacing them at some point. and, by the way, the soffits are looking a little bit worn, so i'm not sure if we need to replace them or just sand them down and paint them. in my mind, i'd been pondering these things for a while, but in scott's he knew we needed the flashing nailed down, and suddenly found himself looking at a new roof, new shutters, new gutters, getting the trim painted, and replacing soffit board. he wasn't very excited about the possibilities. (which i get. i really don't love spending money on house projects.) the roof guy happened to also mention all of those things when he came down to talk about next steps and give us an overview of the roof situation. we'll see. the talk with the insurance company needs to happen before we make any other plans. and regardless of what happens with the roof, i'm going to be so nervous every time we have a hail storm - i remember this summer's hail storm (particularly because i was at home alone in the basement when it hit) and watching the news with people out in aurora shoveling hail off of their driveways like snow and lamenting broken windows. i had no idea it might have actually done anything to our house!
anyway, so that was yesterday morning - after roof guy finished up, we bought me snow pants and headed up for night skiing. it was fun! i did six runs on the bunny slope before deciding i really needed to do a real run. scott took me on a blue, which was much better than last year, but i still fell twice. then i sat out for a while to watch kinley while mike and maura skiied together - kinley and i made like five trips up and down the stairs and the "ella" - elevator - then played in a water fountain for a few minutes, during which she got very wet, whoops, then hung out in the bathroom for literally like 15 minutes because she was enamored with the enormo handicap stall. oh the things that can fascinate an almost-two year old, who knew! they came back and found a change of clothes for their daughter, and scott took me back out for an illicit green run. for whatever reason, the resort has the greens closed during night skiing, but since it's right next to the blue, scott found a little trail through a break in the trees that we could use to get onto the green ... for the most part, there was enough light from the giant full moon and the blue run right next to it, but there were a few spots that felt a little bit eerie. i could see the overall slope of the hill and knew that i was moving down, but i couldn't specifically see the snow or the grade changes, so i just went down slowly, enjoying the stars and the quiet and the amazing view and hoping i didn't fall. i liked the green much better than the blue. we all stopped for pizza at hernando's in winter park on the way home, so we didn't get home until close to midnight ... needless to say, i've been a little sleepy today.
as it were, though, i need to stop typing and go do dishes. we had small group over for dinner tonight, and even though i tried to do dishes as i went, we inevitably have a counter full. (on the menu for tonight: hot & sweet drumsticks, normal italian breadcrumb drumsticks, herbed basmati rice, broccoli, and brownie squares for dessert.)
as the roofer was on top of the house, scott and i were inside talking, and found the situation quickly escalating. we had him out to look at a piece of loose flashing, and it looks like we may need a whole new roof. scott pulled out the piece of wood we had meant to cut down and paint to replace a missing slat in the front shutters, and i mentioned that you can actually buy new vinyl shutters for less than $40/pair at home depot. we were discussing the merits of that when scott asked if the color match on paint would be close enough ... which led me to mention that we really need to get our trim re-painted at some point, as it's, well, ugly in general, and really peeling on the gutters ... oh, and by the way, the gutters leak, so we'll need to think about replacing them at some point. and, by the way, the soffits are looking a little bit worn, so i'm not sure if we need to replace them or just sand them down and paint them. in my mind, i'd been pondering these things for a while, but in scott's he knew we needed the flashing nailed down, and suddenly found himself looking at a new roof, new shutters, new gutters, getting the trim painted, and replacing soffit board. he wasn't very excited about the possibilities. (which i get. i really don't love spending money on house projects.) the roof guy happened to also mention all of those things when he came down to talk about next steps and give us an overview of the roof situation. we'll see. the talk with the insurance company needs to happen before we make any other plans. and regardless of what happens with the roof, i'm going to be so nervous every time we have a hail storm - i remember this summer's hail storm (particularly because i was at home alone in the basement when it hit) and watching the news with people out in aurora shoveling hail off of their driveways like snow and lamenting broken windows. i had no idea it might have actually done anything to our house!
anyway, so that was yesterday morning - after roof guy finished up, we bought me snow pants and headed up for night skiing. it was fun! i did six runs on the bunny slope before deciding i really needed to do a real run. scott took me on a blue, which was much better than last year, but i still fell twice. then i sat out for a while to watch kinley while mike and maura skiied together - kinley and i made like five trips up and down the stairs and the "ella" - elevator - then played in a water fountain for a few minutes, during which she got very wet, whoops, then hung out in the bathroom for literally like 15 minutes because she was enamored with the enormo handicap stall. oh the things that can fascinate an almost-two year old, who knew! they came back and found a change of clothes for their daughter, and scott took me back out for an illicit green run. for whatever reason, the resort has the greens closed during night skiing, but since it's right next to the blue, scott found a little trail through a break in the trees that we could use to get onto the green ... for the most part, there was enough light from the giant full moon and the blue run right next to it, but there were a few spots that felt a little bit eerie. i could see the overall slope of the hill and knew that i was moving down, but i couldn't specifically see the snow or the grade changes, so i just went down slowly, enjoying the stars and the quiet and the amazing view and hoping i didn't fall. i liked the green much better than the blue. we all stopped for pizza at hernando's in winter park on the way home, so we didn't get home until close to midnight ... needless to say, i've been a little sleepy today.
as it were, though, i need to stop typing and go do dishes. we had small group over for dinner tonight, and even though i tried to do dishes as i went, we inevitably have a counter full. (on the menu for tonight: hot & sweet drumsticks, normal italian breadcrumb drumsticks, herbed basmati rice, broccoli, and brownie squares for dessert.)
handyman
i love our new handyman service. they were at the house for precisely 4 hours and 15 minutes on wednesday, and charged us for the exact time. the one guy was able to do tile/drywall, plumbing, and electrical, and the few things that came up that he wasn't able to figure out immediately, he told me right away. (like the flashing issue on our roof - he took a look, found that the board underneath is rotted, and suggested we call a roofer since they'll have to pull up some shingles and whatnot and would be able to do it all properly.) plus, the guy was very professional-yet-friendly, prompt, and seemed to be working hard and quickly the whole time he was there - no standing around or taking his sweet time. i was impressed, and happily put their little magnet on the fridge for the next time we need them.
on that note, i found a roofing company through the same referral list online, and they're coming out to do a free estimate on the roof repair (and a roof replacement, since our inspector guessed we had about 5 more years out of our roof when we moved in almost 2 years ago - this way we'll know what we need to save) on saturday. another company i called did not do estimates on repairs, they just wanted to charge $250 for the trip fee/first hour, then $95/hr after that. maybe that's reasonable (yikes), but i have a hard time paying that much money not knowing what the final bill is going to be.
as this is friday (hoorah!), tonight is date night. what fun and exciting plans do we have, you ask? shopping for snowpants for me. sounds thrilling, i know. scott had bought me a pair of snowpants for christmas that came up approximately three inches past my bellybutton, which is just too much in my book so we returned them. apparently snow pants for women who are short, actually have curves, AND don't want to spend $100+ on a pair of seasonal pants are hard to find - go figure, right? tomorrow is night skiing, though, and scott told me i'm not allowed to wear his old fleece-lined wind pants as snow pants anymore (which makes sense since they're really not that insulatory, even with my long underwear underneath), so shopping it is. with maybe some tivo'd lost afterward since we never finished watching last season and the new season starts on tuesday!
on that note, i found a roofing company through the same referral list online, and they're coming out to do a free estimate on the roof repair (and a roof replacement, since our inspector guessed we had about 5 more years out of our roof when we moved in almost 2 years ago - this way we'll know what we need to save) on saturday. another company i called did not do estimates on repairs, they just wanted to charge $250 for the trip fee/first hour, then $95/hr after that. maybe that's reasonable (yikes), but i have a hard time paying that much money not knowing what the final bill is going to be.
as this is friday (hoorah!), tonight is date night. what fun and exciting plans do we have, you ask? shopping for snowpants for me. sounds thrilling, i know. scott had bought me a pair of snowpants for christmas that came up approximately three inches past my bellybutton, which is just too much in my book so we returned them. apparently snow pants for women who are short, actually have curves, AND don't want to spend $100+ on a pair of seasonal pants are hard to find - go figure, right? tomorrow is night skiing, though, and scott told me i'm not allowed to wear his old fleece-lined wind pants as snow pants anymore (which makes sense since they're really not that insulatory, even with my long underwear underneath), so shopping it is. with maybe some tivo'd lost afterward since we never finished watching last season and the new season starts on tuesday!
month in review
merry belated christmas! we spent the week before christmas packing and cleaning and wrapping and finishing up last-minute shopping. and getting our shower fixed - i tried to turn it on one morning only to have water spray out from behind the handle. no good. the plumber came the next morning and had to replace the handle because some valve ring behind it was broken and he couldn't get a replacement as the handle is so old. i had to take the morning off of work to be here for that, and while i had found myself thinking that i wanted a few extra hours at home to clean and wrap, i really hadn't expected it to come in the form of a $300 plumber bill. (plus we have to have someone else out to fix the drywall and tiles where he had to cut out to access pipes.) be careful what you wish for!
all of that got taken care of, though, so we left bright and early the saturday before christmas to drive back to illinois. we stopped on the way in columbia, missouri to see our dear friends matt and alison and had a wonderful time catching up and hanging out, even though the visit was short. then on to springfield - we had five full days there, and it was relaxing and fun. we taught my parents how to play settlers of catan, saw my brother a few times, watched a few movies, and generally just had a good time. i made a lasagna for christmas eve dinner - it was a little overdone because i set the oven's timed cook feature, but the christmas service at church started 30 minutes later than we thought, whoops. still tasty, just not as gooey on top as it should have been. oh well. christmas day, i made the pioneer woman's orange marmalade rolls and some fruit salad for breakfast, we opened presents, i watched "julie & julia" on dvd with my mom in the afternoon while snacking on cheese and crackers, and then made a cranberry orange pork loin with mashed potatoes and gravy and steamed broccoli and rolls and a peach cobbler for christmas dinner! so tasty.
the drive back yesterday was mildly more dramatic than the drive out to illinois - all was going smoothly, we used my handy iphone to find a pizza hut in oakley about 20 minutes away and called in an order, and the low fuel light popped on. no biggie, we figured we could stop in oakley and fill up on our way to pick up dinner. driving, driving, then suddenly the car starts shaking and scott says, "oh crap." we were running out of gas. we put on the hazards and got onto the shoulder in case the car stopped - i could see the lights of the oakley exit, but didn't know how far away it was. i think we made it about two miles after wally started shaking, and managed to coast down to the bottom of the oakley exit ramp. thankfully the gas station was right at the opposite corner of the intersection that we landed at, and it was a big travel center that had gas cans for sale. the can was unfortunately a child-proof model that is highly frustrating to try to use when it is a) dark, b) approximately 0* with wind chill, and c) you have big gloves on, but we got it worked out in the end. it was definitely one of those moments that you recognize god's hand of protection on you - we could have run out of gas miles from an exit or a gas station, or landed at a tiny gas station that didn't have any gas cans available, etc. and we learned our lesson that highway speeds combined with high cross winds really eat gas - we didn't let wally get below a quarter tank for the rest of the trip.
all of that got taken care of, though, so we left bright and early the saturday before christmas to drive back to illinois. we stopped on the way in columbia, missouri to see our dear friends matt and alison and had a wonderful time catching up and hanging out, even though the visit was short. then on to springfield - we had five full days there, and it was relaxing and fun. we taught my parents how to play settlers of catan, saw my brother a few times, watched a few movies, and generally just had a good time. i made a lasagna for christmas eve dinner - it was a little overdone because i set the oven's timed cook feature, but the christmas service at church started 30 minutes later than we thought, whoops. still tasty, just not as gooey on top as it should have been. oh well. christmas day, i made the pioneer woman's orange marmalade rolls and some fruit salad for breakfast, we opened presents, i watched "julie & julia" on dvd with my mom in the afternoon while snacking on cheese and crackers, and then made a cranberry orange pork loin with mashed potatoes and gravy and steamed broccoli and rolls and a peach cobbler for christmas dinner! so tasty.
the drive back yesterday was mildly more dramatic than the drive out to illinois - all was going smoothly, we used my handy iphone to find a pizza hut in oakley about 20 minutes away and called in an order, and the low fuel light popped on. no biggie, we figured we could stop in oakley and fill up on our way to pick up dinner. driving, driving, then suddenly the car starts shaking and scott says, "oh crap." we were running out of gas. we put on the hazards and got onto the shoulder in case the car stopped - i could see the lights of the oakley exit, but didn't know how far away it was. i think we made it about two miles after wally started shaking, and managed to coast down to the bottom of the oakley exit ramp. thankfully the gas station was right at the opposite corner of the intersection that we landed at, and it was a big travel center that had gas cans for sale. the can was unfortunately a child-proof model that is highly frustrating to try to use when it is a) dark, b) approximately 0* with wind chill, and c) you have big gloves on, but we got it worked out in the end. it was definitely one of those moments that you recognize god's hand of protection on you - we could have run out of gas miles from an exit or a gas station, or landed at a tiny gas station that didn't have any gas cans available, etc. and we learned our lesson that highway speeds combined with high cross winds really eat gas - we didn't let wally get below a quarter tank for the rest of the trip.
brr thru grey's
(i wrote this entry, reread it for general clarity editing and realized that it is very stream of consciousness, so i added some transitions. that's literally how my brain works. only when i'm talking, i don't usually add the transitions, and most of this would happen in my mind, so i'd be prone to tell you how cold it is today, then skip straight to grey's anatomy. scott thinks it's hilarious. oh, and speaking of mental narration, i've been listening to the sweetness at the bottom of the pie on cd book during my commute - it's set it england, thus has a british narrator. as a consequence, my mental narrator has had a bit of a british accent for the past week or so. tally ho.)
i am so glad i'm inside today - it's currently 8* (feels like -9*!) with a high of 13*. and, of course, snowy. i don't think i have ever been so grateful for my attached garage at home, or my garage-under-my-building at work. speaking of cold ...
we cut our christmas tree on sunday. we were supposed to drive up to winter park with friends, but the snow storm began late saturday night and we didn't feel like risking our lives on berthoud pass just to cut christmas trees, so we found a tree farm up near greeley and went there instead. it was cold, but fun. we all got our trees, played on the sled with kinley, and got to watch our trees be shaken and baled to tie onto the top of the car. all things considered, though - and i feel like a total grinch saying this - i think i'll be okay if next year we just go to a tree lot and make plans to go sledding with friends separately. i'll probably change my mind on that by the time next december rolls around, though, so don't hold me to it!
when we got our tree home, scott chopped a few extra inches off of the bottom to get rid of some dead branches, then we took it in to put in the stand ... and it wouldn't fit! we found a bigger tree stand at home depot, but by that point, we were running late to go back up to mike and maura's for dinner and hanging out/watching kinley decorate their tree, so we went straight there - we put our tree in the stand when we got home around 9 that evening, but have yet to decorate or light it. maybe tonight. we couldn't decorate it last night because ...
last week, scott would come home from work and say that he'd been bored all day (mainly because his coworker and boss just didn't have time to give him any training or set him up with files or data that he needed to get anything done). yesterday, they evidently got things figured out, because the poor guy was at work until 9pm! i say "poor guy", but honestly, i think he kind of liked it. in a slightly overwhelmed sort of way, but he did like it - which is good, because it's his career, and i want him to be happy in it. speaking of busy at work ...
i, on the other hand, am more or less alone in the office all week - one coworker is here, but all the executives are out at meetings this week. thus, i have a few things to do, but in the 1.5 work days i've had thus far, i've caught myself up on the last 5 episodes of grey's anatomy on hulu. i don't love the show enough to tivo it, but i do love it enough to make it my go-to show for watching at the office when it's just me here.
i am so glad i'm inside today - it's currently 8* (feels like -9*!) with a high of 13*. and, of course, snowy. i don't think i have ever been so grateful for my attached garage at home, or my garage-under-my-building at work. speaking of cold ...
we cut our christmas tree on sunday. we were supposed to drive up to winter park with friends, but the snow storm began late saturday night and we didn't feel like risking our lives on berthoud pass just to cut christmas trees, so we found a tree farm up near greeley and went there instead. it was cold, but fun. we all got our trees, played on the sled with kinley, and got to watch our trees be shaken and baled to tie onto the top of the car. all things considered, though - and i feel like a total grinch saying this - i think i'll be okay if next year we just go to a tree lot and make plans to go sledding with friends separately. i'll probably change my mind on that by the time next december rolls around, though, so don't hold me to it!
when we got our tree home, scott chopped a few extra inches off of the bottom to get rid of some dead branches, then we took it in to put in the stand ... and it wouldn't fit! we found a bigger tree stand at home depot, but by that point, we were running late to go back up to mike and maura's for dinner and hanging out/watching kinley decorate their tree, so we went straight there - we put our tree in the stand when we got home around 9 that evening, but have yet to decorate or light it. maybe tonight. we couldn't decorate it last night because ...
last week, scott would come home from work and say that he'd been bored all day (mainly because his coworker and boss just didn't have time to give him any training or set him up with files or data that he needed to get anything done). yesterday, they evidently got things figured out, because the poor guy was at work until 9pm! i say "poor guy", but honestly, i think he kind of liked it. in a slightly overwhelmed sort of way, but he did like it - which is good, because it's his career, and i want him to be happy in it. speaking of busy at work ...
i, on the other hand, am more or less alone in the office all week - one coworker is here, but all the executives are out at meetings this week. thus, i have a few things to do, but in the 1.5 work days i've had thus far, i've caught myself up on the last 5 episodes of grey's anatomy on hulu. i don't love the show enough to tivo it, but i do love it enough to make it my go-to show for watching at the office when it's just me here.
sorry so remiss
wow, this is not a month of inspired postings on my part, is it? let's see, things going on here:
1. this last saturday, we got to drive down to c. springs with mike and maura and kinley to see our old friends lori and aaron and their daughter (now 8 months old! this is the third time we've seen them since they moved back in july) and their new house down there. the visit was a lot of fun, as usual, but it started snowing early in the evening, so the roads coming back to denver were not fun. we made it home alive and in one piece, though.
2. thanksgiving is a week from tomorrow and i'm trememdously excited. in part for the food (mike and maura are having us over for dinner - her parents are in town for the holiday this year), but also for the 4 day weekend. love it. plus, thanksgiving means the start of christmas music season, and that i can put my pretty red berry wreath (from the martha stewart collection at kmart a few years ago) on my front door. also, and i guess this goes back to the food, i get to make green bean casserole, and that's never a bad thing. i'm debating making an extra green bean casserole for my fridge since i'm not sure if we'll have any leftovers from dinner, but i think that might be considered glutonous.
3. on saturday, one of the girls in our sunday school class is having a craft and cookie afternoon at her house, and i'm a little bit excited for that, too. i can't precisely decide what to bring - on the one hand, i started a little knit scarf for kinley like two years ago that i paused on because i realized that kids shouldn't wear scarves until they're two, so i need to get that finished if i want to get it to her for christmas. on the other hand, i'd really like to start cutting my quilt squares for my picnic quilt and that might be a good motivation to work on that. knitting might be more portable. (the scarf is cute - it's a pale yellow, because i started it before kinley was born and they didn't find out the gender beforehand, and ribbed. each row is something like 3 knit, 3 perl, etc, which makes a nice fat ribbing when you do it right. i'm going to see if i can get some bright yarns and make brightly colored pompom tassels on the ends.)
4. in a stroke of dinner genius last week, i made spicy honey-brushed chicken thighs for dinner on wednesday, then chopped up the leftover thighs on thursday, added rice, black beans, chopped tomatoes, lettuce, and sour cream - and voila, chicken burrito bowls! (spicy honey brushed chicken thighs are basically the easiest thing to make - especially if you use my generous sprinkling method of seasoning, rather than measuring out spices and rubbing them on. so what, like 10 minutes of effort for two dinners? sweet.) unfortunately i decided at the grocery store last time that i would give dried beans a try, and despite soaking for about 10 hours during the day and then simmering on the stove for close to an hour while we were at the gym pre-dinner, the beans were pretty tough. i've heard that slow cooking dried beans all day works well, though, so we'll give that a try next time. i saved the leftover beans for slow cooked chili this next weekend, i'll call that my trial run.
1. this last saturday, we got to drive down to c. springs with mike and maura and kinley to see our old friends lori and aaron and their daughter (now 8 months old! this is the third time we've seen them since they moved back in july) and their new house down there. the visit was a lot of fun, as usual, but it started snowing early in the evening, so the roads coming back to denver were not fun. we made it home alive and in one piece, though.
2. thanksgiving is a week from tomorrow and i'm trememdously excited. in part for the food (mike and maura are having us over for dinner - her parents are in town for the holiday this year), but also for the 4 day weekend. love it. plus, thanksgiving means the start of christmas music season, and that i can put my pretty red berry wreath (from the martha stewart collection at kmart a few years ago) on my front door. also, and i guess this goes back to the food, i get to make green bean casserole, and that's never a bad thing. i'm debating making an extra green bean casserole for my fridge since i'm not sure if we'll have any leftovers from dinner, but i think that might be considered glutonous.
3. on saturday, one of the girls in our sunday school class is having a craft and cookie afternoon at her house, and i'm a little bit excited for that, too. i can't precisely decide what to bring - on the one hand, i started a little knit scarf for kinley like two years ago that i paused on because i realized that kids shouldn't wear scarves until they're two, so i need to get that finished if i want to get it to her for christmas. on the other hand, i'd really like to start cutting my quilt squares for my picnic quilt and that might be a good motivation to work on that. knitting might be more portable. (the scarf is cute - it's a pale yellow, because i started it before kinley was born and they didn't find out the gender beforehand, and ribbed. each row is something like 3 knit, 3 perl, etc, which makes a nice fat ribbing when you do it right. i'm going to see if i can get some bright yarns and make brightly colored pompom tassels on the ends.)
4. in a stroke of dinner genius last week, i made spicy honey-brushed chicken thighs for dinner on wednesday, then chopped up the leftover thighs on thursday, added rice, black beans, chopped tomatoes, lettuce, and sour cream - and voila, chicken burrito bowls! (spicy honey brushed chicken thighs are basically the easiest thing to make - especially if you use my generous sprinkling method of seasoning, rather than measuring out spices and rubbing them on. so what, like 10 minutes of effort for two dinners? sweet.) unfortunately i decided at the grocery store last time that i would give dried beans a try, and despite soaking for about 10 hours during the day and then simmering on the stove for close to an hour while we were at the gym pre-dinner, the beans were pretty tough. i've heard that slow cooking dried beans all day works well, though, so we'll give that a try next time. i saved the leftover beans for slow cooked chili this next weekend, i'll call that my trial run.
ode to walden and snow
wally definitely earned his keep in the last two days! with not having his snow tires on yet, there's no way scott would have been able to get around town in his truck - he said the interstate wasn't really plowed yet when he went up to a meeting in lowry around 10:30am. honestly, if we didn't have wally, neither of us probably would have made it off of our street - we live on a tiny side street that will never be plowed, and the intersection with the secondary street we live off of just gets so snow and ice packed, erma wouldn't have been able to make it out. this morning, scott left at the same time as me with the intention that if he got stuck, we would try to rig up a tow so that wally would help haul truck out of the ice. he managed to get through on his own, but still - it's nice to now that we have an option like that. (although it might be a more solid option if, you know, we actually had a hitch on the back of wally.)
we measured the snow on the driveway at about 5pm last night, and there was actually 1/2" less than there had been that morning despite the fact that it had been snowing all day. i think the snow yesterday was a lot heavier and wetter than the snow from wednesday, so it sort of compacted what was underneath - i noticed, too, that along the back wall, the drifts had fallen about 2" by yesterday night from where they were in the morning. so i'll estimate that we got maybe 17" of snow all told, which really only equals about 1-2" of rain! isn't that crazy? it kind of makes sense, though - i had wondered how colorado has so many drought/water issues when we get such ridiculous amounts of snow in the mountains every year, but the 300+" of snow the mountains get equals probably 20-30" of rain - most likely closer to 20" since so much of it is the dry powder. granted, that is over the entire high country, which is pretty big - colorado has the most land over 10,000 feet in the u.s. i checked aspen, steamboat, and telluride's annual snowfalls, and they're all over 300" of snow, and the three towns are very spread out. hmm, although this other site says like 136" of snow annually for aspen, which is pretty different ... either way, a ridiculous amount of snow doesn't necessarily mean a ridiculous amount of precipitation.
we measured the snow on the driveway at about 5pm last night, and there was actually 1/2" less than there had been that morning despite the fact that it had been snowing all day. i think the snow yesterday was a lot heavier and wetter than the snow from wednesday, so it sort of compacted what was underneath - i noticed, too, that along the back wall, the drifts had fallen about 2" by yesterday night from where they were in the morning. so i'll estimate that we got maybe 17" of snow all told, which really only equals about 1-2" of rain! isn't that crazy? it kind of makes sense, though - i had wondered how colorado has so many drought/water issues when we get such ridiculous amounts of snow in the mountains every year, but the 300+" of snow the mountains get equals probably 20-30" of rain - most likely closer to 20" since so much of it is the dry powder. granted, that is over the entire high country, which is pretty big - colorado has the most land over 10,000 feet in the u.s. i checked aspen, steamboat, and telluride's annual snowfalls, and they're all over 300" of snow, and the three towns are very spread out. hmm, although this other site says like 136" of snow annually for aspen, which is pretty different ... either way, a ridiculous amount of snow doesn't necessarily mean a ridiculous amount of precipitation.
snow day!
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labels:
winter
i'm currently enjoying a snow day at home! we shoveled 8" off of the driveway last night at around 5pm, and by 7:30am today had another 7" built up. i haven't measured since then, so we'll call it 15" and counting. we closed the office at 1:30 yesterday, and i'm off today, too! the office is technically open today, but we don't have the snow tires on scott's truck yet, so he needs the forester to get around today. we were just planning that i would drop him off at work and then pick him up afterward, but it turns out he has a meeting this morning up nearish my work then needs to get back to his office down south. we were trying to figure out the logistics of both getting to where we need to be, and i was planning on asking my coworker who lives near us for a ride back down here after work, but she took pity on me and told me not to worry about coming in since they really don't need two people there today. yes, i do feel a little bit guilty ... but i'm still going to enjoy my pajama day.
check out my facebook for snow pictures.
check out my facebook for snow pictures.
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