I saw this ad in my gmail account this morning:
It’s bad enough to use them all over your own website, but to pay someone else to display them for you? I guess they have a surplus of apostrophes and needed to get rid of a few.
I drove to the post office today to send off some books. The entire city seems to be covered in ice. The parking lot of the post office has a four inch sheet of ice over it. I almost got stuck on just the flat surface. Most of the roads are covered in thick, bumpy ice, making driving really difficult and slow. Only one or two of the main arterials are clear of this mess. I hope the roads in Coeur d’Alene are better than they are here in Post Falls. They do seem to be better at plowing regularly over there.
We had five or so more inches of snow this morning when I woke up. I had to get up early and shovel the driveway so I could make my doctor’s appointment at 8:30 this morning. The roads were horrendous, driving the 5 miles to Coeur d’Alene was a white-knuckled experience I’d not soon like to repeat.
The whole thing started with my regular blood donation. I’ve almost donated 3 gallons, but lately have been deferred repeatedly because my blood pressure has been too high. Since it’s been relatively high (averaging 150/84) every time I check it, I made an appointment to see my doctor. He ordered up some blood work and an ultrasound because he thought my neck was a little swollen. Turns out I have an under active thyroid. I was a bit worried about the medication (especially the cost), but it’s really not very expensive. In fact, it costs less for me to pay cash out of pocket for the medicine than it costs for my springtime allergy medicine even after my insurance covers 80% of it.
So here’s to health in the new year!
Last night we had a new year’s party at my wife’s parent’s B&B. We played games, had snacks, and heard some pretty funny stories from the Scharf family (this is very normal for the Scharfs, they’re wacky). Anyway, we were hoping for a few more people to show up, but quite a few people never made it.
And now we’re starting off the new year with something that isn’t new at all: snow. We’re under yet another winter storm warning, and are going to have from 5-8 inches today. After making history last month with record-smashing snowfall, we’re not terribly excited about the new year…
Terry Pratchett has been knighted. Woohoo! There’s nothing like seeing one of your favorite authors get a nice reward.
Last night I finished reading the first of C.S. Forester’s Horatio Hornblower novels, Mr. Midshipman Hornblower (Hornblower Saga)
I’ve always had a bit of a thing for nautical fiction (Powell’s has a Nautical Fiction section!). I really enjoyed this book, which is comprised of several short stories detailing Mr. Hornblower’s early naval service in the late 18th century. The Hornblower series is a classic, and though I’ve only read the first of eleven books, I really liked it. Hornblower far outshines Stevenson’s Jim Hawkins (from Treasure Island), his adventures are more exciting and overcomes adversity despite the mistakes he makes.
I hate to be the one to complain about bad neighbors, but two doors down from my cul de sac my neighbors have left a car on the road for months. With all the snowfall, it’s completely buried. Normally it’s not a problem, but we’ve had so much snow that the plow isn’t coming through our turnabout because it might hit the car. I just called the police department to complain about it. The garbage trucks aren’t coming through, and even the mail is not being delivered. Enough is enough, time to let the Police deal with it.
It’s snowing again—badly. We are under another winter storm warning. We have up to six more inches of snow coming today. The roads are already barely manageable. It took me over 30 minutes to drive to work, and I have no idea if I’ll even be able to make it home…
We’ve had the snowiest and coldest december ever. GLOBAL WARMING IS BULL****!
Well the geniuses at Cinematic Titanic are about to release a new movie on January 8th. I can’t wait!
We woke up this morning to another 7 or so inches of snow. The snow is now piled over my head where I shovel it out. To top that off, the snowplow, trash, and mail isn’t coming to my house because my jackhole neighbor left his car on the street (the entire winter so far) and there isn’t enough room for the plow to get around it anymore with all the snow piled up, so the plow driver just turned around and left. It’s been three weeks since I last had a garbage pickup. Lorien walked to the store today to pick a few things up. We can’t drive out of the cul de sac right now.
We made these last week when we got snowed in, along with tons of other cookies. We distributed most of them, and kept a few for snacking on. I think these are my new favorite!
Chocolate Goody Bars
1 box brownie mix
vanilla frosting
1 cup peanuts
1 12oz package semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup creamy peanut butter
3 cups rice krispies
Make the brownies as specified on the box. When done, let cool completely. Spread frosting (we made our own cream cheese frosting) and sprinkled enough peanuts to get good coverage according to taste. Let this chill in the refrigerator at least an hour. For the final layer, combine chocolate chips and peanut butter over medium heat until it’s all melted together. Stir in the rice krispies. Spread over the frosting/peanut layer and chill in the refrigerator for about an hour before cutting.
You can find this recipe in its entirety as well as many other very good ones in Hometown Potluck Favorites.
For you Hough parts of the family, here are some pictures from John and Tina.
Merry Christmas one and all!
Yesterday I returned home to find my snowshovel broken. It sucked. This morning I broke out my bit set, drilled out some new holes, and put some new large machine screws through the handle. It held quite well while I shoveled the snow this morning. I hope it makes it through the storm. We are currently under a winter storm warning, but so far it hasn’t snowed much.
In the immortal word of Bender—we’re boned. I got home today and my snowshovel was broken, the head swivels 360° around the handle. This does not allow me to shovel any snow whatsoever. When I shoveled on Monday morning, it was fine. I don’t know what happened. I guess I shouldn’t have left it on my porch.
Anyway, it’s quite impossible to find one anywhere around here because of all the heavy snowfall we’ve had this month. So the coming storm will just swallow up our driveway and cars.