Covering the Blahs

Nov 232012
 

As was predicted, Old Man Winter let his presence be known and gave us a bit of the white stuff Thursday night.

There’s nothing quite like waking up to a fresh dusting of snow (or in this case about 3 inches), and there is always something super special about the first official snow fall of the season.

The high temps for the coming week are only supposed to be in the 20s and 30s, so I suspect that this new batch is going to stay around and be considered the base for the season.

Although this sets in the reality of what the next 5 months has in store for us (and we’ll all be a little snow crazy by February), at least it covers up the brown blahs I’ve been looking at for the last month.

It is this time of year that I look at the pros and cons of the impending winter season (pro:  bears will hibernate and I can put up my birdfeeders; con:  bone chilling cold), all of them weigh in to the same conclusion:  this is life in the Northwoods and we have no other choice but to embrace it.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t complain about it too.  Especially come February.

 

This, That and Some Other Stuff

Nov 212012
 

As you’ve noticed this week, I’ve been a little absent from the blogging world.  I have no excuse other than I really haven’t had a whole lot going on to put down in words.

Plus, I’m being lazy, with a touch of writer’s block.

It’s still unseasonably warm in the Northwoods but all of that is going to change come Friday, when Old Man Winter makes a little visit to let us know that he hasn’t forgotten what time of year is and will drop the temperatures into the 20’s and 30’s for daytime highs, along with some of the flaky white stuff just for good measure.

Which is fine with me because all of this brown, drab landscape that I’m looking at every day is rather boring, which probably adds to my blah attitude as of late.

At least any inclimate weather will hold off until after the Thanksgiving holiday in which Rick & I will be traveling south to see Nichole and Corey and the munchkins for the day to enjoy her wonderful cooking and get our fill of hugs and kisses to tide us over until we see them again at Christmas.

And speaking of Christmas, I’m already sick of the pre-Black Friday crap being thrown at me every time I turn on my TV or go on the interwebs.  If they actually think that I’m going to be at a store at Midnight on Friday to battle crazy people for their so-called “deals”,  they are sadly mistaken.

I have, however, considered going Thursday night… I’m so ashamed of myself.

 

The Reveal

Nov 152012
 

OK, so did you figure out what the mystery muffins were?  I’m sure that everyone was thinking “Carrot Cake,” right?

Yes, yes, that would be correct.  HOWEVER, there is a slight twist to that answer.  Me, being the baking rebel and all, could not make just ordinary carrot cake muffins.  I have to change it up a notch and be all unconventional.

First off, I tried the recipe not with the ordinary muffin tins (where’s the fun in that? ), but instead with my muffin top pan.  The tricky part about doing that is adjusting the cooking time because of the shallow pan.

Where the original recipe requires about 20 minutes to cook, mine only took about 14 minutes.  While they turned out just fine with this pan, I would have to say that they aren’t as moist as I would have wanted them to be, so perhaps pulling them out at 12 minutes would have produced a better product.

Now here is where the fun part came in:  where traditional carrot cake has that nummy cream cheese frosting *drool* that we all love on top of the cake, these little babies have it baked in the center.  How fun is that!

Again, because of the pan I used it wasn’t this huge glob as show in the original recipe, but I have to say I was quite happy with the result anyway.  You have this wonderful carrot cake and cream cheese flavor without getting frosting all over your face and/or fingers.  And, storing them is a cinch because you can stack them without working about smooshing the frosting!

Although I will have to tweak the recipe and baking time the next time I make them (Rick thinks I should add a touch of lemon juice to the frosting next time), I think that I’ve found another keeper to add to the recipe binder.

 

I Really Have to Check My Phone More Often

Nov 142012
 

Every year, I try (and fail) to get my daughters to get their Christmas lists to me by a certain date.  I want to be proactive and try to get my shopping in as soon as possible so that I’m not rushing to get it done at the last minute (is shopping online rushing?).

I would like to say that this year was different and I had lists for all the kids and grandkids wayyyyy ahead of time.

Yes, I would like to say that.

What I can say is that I do have some ideas, and that more coming trickling in as the over-commercialized-holiday-that-starts-appearing-in-stores-before-Halloween quickly approaches.

So when Nichole fired off a message Sunday morning saying that leggings would be a great gift for the girls, I returned the message (12 hours later because that’s when I noticed it) asking for sizes and colors.  Unfortunately, as I hit the “send” button, I realized that she was probably in bed already and wouldn’t received it until the next morning.

No biggie, I thought, and promptly went back to watching “America’s Next Iron Chef:  Redemption” (which, by the way, I highly recommend if you are a) a person that loves to watch people run around crazed trying to make a meal out of seaweed and pterodactyl intestines; or b) plan their next grocery list from the secret ingredient).

So when my cell phone went off at 4:30 in the morning, alerting me to a message, the only thing I could think of was “Oh shit, something happened“, because when it’s that time of the morning and my phone goes off, it can only be bad news.

I jumped out of bed, and with bleary eyes (and no glasses on), I squinted at the screen preparing for the worst.

Instead, I got “Paige 10 lex 8 bug 6.  Black preferably but any color.”

Just let me say that texting is not the preferred way to give me ideas, but it will certainly get my attention.

 

Remnants of the Storm

Nov 132012
 

Now that the roof is on the shed and the leaves are raked, we are almost ready for whatever Mother Nature has to throw at us in the form of precipitation.

It was just in the nick of time, too.

A few days after the last shingle was nailed in the roof, we had our first taste of winter.  Although the snow came down in big fluffy flakes, only about an inch stayed on the ground, and even that didn’t stay around for too long, which is a good thing since I still haven’t put away the furniture cushions on the deck yet.

I’m either procrastinating or testing how far I can push the weather gods on holding out on the white stuff.

Some from column A, and some from Column B.

And speaking of the white stuff, we had more of it on Saturday, but not in the form you would think.

This, my friends, is the remnants of the thunderstorm that we had Saturday morning (yes, it’s November in the Northwoods and it was warm enough for a thunderstorm.  No global warming here).  As I drove into town I came across areas that received so much hail that it looked like snow covering the road.

Let me just add a little public service announcement here:  Do not take pictures with your cell phone while you are traveling down the road at 45 miles per hour on a potentially icy surface that is covered with frozen droplets of water.

Don’t worry, I didn’t have an accident, but in hindsight it probably wasn’t one of the smartest things to do.  At least I wasn’t texting.  I waited until I was safely parked to do that.

 

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