Day 5 post-big snow; Day 1 of blizzard; Day 6 of not leaving the house

"What day of the week is it?" I honestly can't believe I asked Brad that question this morning. That's what happens when you haven't left your little four block radius around your house in almost a week and haven't ridden in a car since... oh wow, a week! A week ago today, I was at the grocery store, stocking up on provisions for this supposed "winter storm" we were going to have. Well, I'm now a believer, since it has also been blizzarding for the past 24 hours. It has finally stopped doing anything out and Brad is out, once again, digging his car out of the snow. Mine? An absolute lost cause... you can't even tell it's a car, with the exception of a little tiny part of the rear view mirror that's visible.

I'd be surprised if we have work tomorrow, as there has been a lot of blowing and drifting snow and above-ground Metro doesn't like big snow drifts. Fingers crossed for Friday! Fingers even more crossed for our flight outta here Saturday night!!!!

blizzarding

some mega icicle that formed overnight

clean up begins... again

how to make an awesome cold weather lunch

We have pretty much been living off these things since the snow started (and a modified version of it is usually our daily brown bag work lunch).

Ingredients (makes one sandwich):
- 2 oz low-sodium turkey
- 2 slices of your favorite bread (I like whole wheat deli-flats, which are only 100 calories each!)
- your favorite butter/margarine/butter-type spread
- cheese (I like Swiss, which is low in sodium!)

1. First, set up your Griddler/George Foreman Grill with griddle plates/good ol' flat, square griddle pan. Heat it up to a good medium-high heat.

2. Butter one side of your bread. If you're using a bread like my favorite deli-flats, butter than non-crusty side.




3. Put your bread butter side down onto the hot griddle.

4. Assemble your sandwiches with turkey and cheese. You can use one piece of cheese or, if you're my husband, sneak two pieces on there.

5. When it starts getting a little bubbly, and the cheese starts to melt around the edges, it's time to put the two halves together.

6. Let it cook for a little bit as a whole sandwich, flipping it once or twice to get both sides nice and brown and crispy.

7. Close your griddler to give the sandwich a nice press and a final sizzle. If you're using a griddle pan, you can squish it down with a spatula.
8. And then you're done!

I think it makes a perfect lunch with a piece of fruit!

Day 4: no work, lotsa snow

Day 4. No work (again) today because the Metro still isn't running regularly above ground - I now haven't been to my office since Thursday. Have to fight for the Internet connection with Brad, since we are both trying to work from home on one Internet connection. They just brought construction equipment into our parking lot to try and move some of the snow... because we are supposed to get 10 - 20 more inches of the white stuff tonight.

Oh yeah, and our flight to Barbados was already cancelled. Yup, two days in advance. So now we leave Saturday night, spend the night at JFK airport (in a near-by hotel actually) and fly to Barbados on a ridiculously long 5 1/2 hour flight Sunday. At least my toes will be in sand before the week is out.

One last thing? Gary the snowman says hello. I think he's the only one who likes all this snow.

Snow, snow and more snow

I am in absolute disbelief that we are supposed to get another 10 - 20 inches of snow tomorrow night and Wednesday. I also refuse to think about what that means for our 6am flight Thursday morning. But I'm not in enough disbelief to not have sent Brad back to the grocery store tonight to stock up on more provisions just in case (good thing we dug out the car yesterday!). We did not have work today, since both our office's follow the federal government's status for those sorts of things. While this sounds appealing, it's really getting quite boring only leaving the house to go shovel. So we decided to set out this afternoon for lunch at Hard Times Cafe, conveniently located about five blocks away. Of course the sidewalks along the direct route weren't shoveled, so we took the nice city walking path, which was completely snow and ice free (makes me wonder why our street looks like a skating rink, but the stupid walking path is clear...). We had a lovely lunch, and it was SO nice to get out of the house. On the way back, we even stopped to make a snowman and named him Gary.

So, there you have it. I give it about a 50-50 chance that we will have work tomorrow. Most school's are still closed, Metro is still not running above ground and the streets are, well, lousy. Here's to more snow!

our street, still snowed in

When snow is nice

In the midst of all this crazy snowpocalypse this weekend, I almost forgot about the pretty snow we got last week. We got about four or five inches overnight, and it was an absolutely beautiful walk to the Metro the next day. Here's a remind that, sometimes, snow is nice.

Things I love about snowy weekends

1. catching up on my blogs with a homemade skim latte (thank you awesome milk frother I got for having enough tickets at an arcade in Marion, Ohio!) in my favorite mug

2. enjoying the view from indoors

3. catching up on my favorite movies

(yes, I know, could my taste in movies be any more random? the even sadder part? they BOTH make me cry!)

4. busting open a fantastic bottle of wine, just to to celebrate the snow

special bonus this snowy weekend: the Super Bowl is on tonight - Go Colts!

Snow? Why yes, we have some of that

Well, I will admit that I was skeptical about this "record snowfall." I was skeptical as it began falling from the sky yesterday. I was skeptical as it fell throughout the night and day today. My skepticism ended when I headed downstairs to shovel today. Yikes. Actual snow accumulation is probably only about 16"-18" by us, certainly not record, but there are some crazy drifts in our parking lot that are literally thigh-high.

Quite frankly, as long as some sort of four-wheel drive vehicle can make it down the main road we live off of to the main road that the airport is on by Thursday morning at about 4:30am, I could really care less about what happens between now and then. Heck, maybe I won't even have to go back to work until after we get back from sunning ourselves in the tropics :)

the view at about 10am this morning

snow is over, beautiful sunset!

lots of digging out to do!

Five for Friday

1. Well, we here in D.C. are doing what one might call hunkering down. See, we're supposed to get anywhere between 18 - 30 inches of snow this weekend. It's going to be a heck of a lot of the white stuff. I worked from home today to avoid the nightmare that commuting into D.C. and back for a few hours of work, but Brad braved it and made it home safely about 30 minutes ago. It has been snowing since about 10:30 and so far we have zero additional inches of snow - it's not sticking to anything! We shall see if the predictions come true...

2. Since we're basically stuck inside for the near future, we have been loading up on DVD's, books, magazines and lots of HGTV. In between solving work issues this morning (hey, cancer fighting doesn't stop just because of a little snow!), I went through our massive collection of framed photographs and mapped out where they're going to be hung around the house. It will probably be art overload, but I love a full wall and it's better than having them sit in a pile in our guest room/office/art storage room.

3. Bright and early Thursday morning, we leave for Barbados. I am confident that we will be dug out (at least partially) by then and that my toes will soon be in white sand. The best part of this trip is that my grandparents will be there for part of the time too! The worst part is that it will probably be out last trip there :(

4. I have to be honest, I'm really skeptical about this snowpocalypse... I mean, I kind of hope I'm wrong, so that we get lots of fun snow, but it just seems disappointing right now. I expect to wake up to a white out tomorrow morning.

5. That's it. Sorry... it has been snow talk 24/7 here, so that's really all that's on the ol' mind. An extremely boring five for Friday. I promise more excitement in two weeks when I'm back from Barbados!

Wallpaper Wednesday

One of my favorite travel photography blogs, the Digital Trekker, does something fun every month that I thought I would try out: he posts, in various sizes, a photo that you can use as wallpaper on your desktop, laptop, smart phone, etc. Since I hate boring wallpaper backgrounds, I am always playing around with mine to see what fits my mood. My current one is the photo of palm trees that I blogged yesterday, but I thought I would share a different one with you.


Since it's chilly in much of the U.S. right now, how about a perfect view to warm you up?

Small - 240x160

Medium - 500x333

Large - 1024x681

Mega - 2804x1864

Makes a superb BlackBerry background!

Nine Days

:)

Five for... Saturday

1. Sorry I didn't post yesterday. I was at a two day health conference with a bunch of other health policy wonks. Nothing like spending two days in a windowless hotel basement!

2. Last night, after the conference ended, Brad and I went to the Kennedy Center to see the American Ballet Theater perform "Romeo and Juliette." It was a great performance! I always feel lucky that we have access to such great performing arts in DC, even if DC audiences aren't always the best, or the most appreciative.

3. We got some pretty big snow today. They had forecasted about an inch, so we didn't go to the grocery store or really prepare at all. Turns out we got around 8"! Whoops, so much for that good forecasting. Needless to say, since DC shuts down after about 3" of snow, we didn't leave the house today. If only one of these snowstorms would hit on a workday...

4. Since we were snowed in tonight, we decided to watch a movie - "An Affair to Remember." In addition to lots of swooning over Mr. Cary Grant, the last scene always makes me cry! We even watched the last scene twice tonight because Brad wanted to see it again and I got teary-eyed both times! Such a romantic movie. I think the original 1939 production of "Love Affair" is next on our Netflix list. "Winter must be so cold for those with no warm memories..."

5. It will be a busy week ahead, I can only hope that we can get healthy! We have both been fighting cold bugs/minor cases of the flu/generally feeling lousy for the past 10 days. Hoping to get healthy before we leave for Barbados in a week and a half!

Brothers

I have been thinking about my brother a lot lately. As I have mentioned before, if you didn't already know, he is stationed with the U.S. Air Force in South Korea right now and has been for the past 13 months.

We were never especially close as kids (just kind of stayed out of each other's way), but I'm having this sisterly urge to give him a big ol' hug, a little punch in the arm, and to debate the finer things in life, like video games, our messed up political system and the general musings of a 24 year old guy. The good news is that he his done with his military service July 12, which means he'll be back in the good ol' US of A, ready to take on the world with his new-found skills, adult-ness and (hopefully discovered) knack for seeking out really great Asian food.

Here's a quick photo that he sent my Dad from the last train station before the DMZ in South Korea. Disappointing that there are no evil looking North Korean soldiers over the fence... also, that nice sweater? I believe I purchased that for him a Christmas or two ago. Such a great sister I am!

Blogs

What blogs do you read? It seems like I'm constantly adding new ones to my Google Reader, which already has an assortment of photogragphy, food, travel and design blogs. Can you recommend any new ones?

My current collection includes...

family... gotta keep up on the kiddos!
"... But I'm Fambly!"- my cousin-in-law, Mindy
"The Blog in My Life" - my cousin, Erin
"New Every Morning" - my Aunt Diane
"Paynefully So" - my cousin, Callie

fabulous photographers... my inspiration
5 Rings Photo
the Blonde Photographer
Ciao, Chessa!
DC Discombobulated
Erin Conrad Photography
Kate Headley Fine Art Wedding Photography
Kristybee
Mary Kate McKenna Photography

design and decor... because I can only wish our house looked like this!
Decorno
Shelterrific
Lobster and Swan

food... sweets and treats
Bakerella
David Lebovitz
Tartelette

random giggles... a nice mid-day diversion
Cake Wrecks
French Word-a-Day
A Cup of Jo

Five for Friday

1. So, as you can see from my posts earlier this week, we had a super awesome time in Florida last weekend. In addition to feeling the warm sun on my face, the cool sand between my toes, and the yummy Greek food in my tummy, it was just nice to get the heck out of DC! Next trip: three weeks from today, I will be sitting on the beach, reading a book in Barbados!

2. While we were in Tampa, we met a friend of mine from high school and his lovely wife for lunch. It was crazy to catch up with someone I haven't seen in ten years! Much to my happiness though, he hadn't changed one bit since high school - still sweet and funny! It was fun to catch up, talk about old times, look back at how lousy our education actually way, and not have him tell any incriminating stories since, well, I was a goody-goody in high school.

3. I worked out with a personal trainer for the first time in quite a while this morning. While I am definitely feeling it now (and we didn't even work that hard!), it's a good sore and it felt great to get moving again. As I told him, my goal is less of a number on a scale and more of just feeling good and strong in my own body. We'll see if I can stick with it through all the crazy traveling we have going on in the next few months...

4. Speaking of crazy traveling, take a look at this schedule (which is going to produce SO many awesome photos!):

• Barbados:February 11-16
• weekend trip for Brad's birthday to surprise location: April 9-11
• Ft. Lauderdale: May 7-9
• Ohio for Brad's class reunion: May 29-31
• somewhere over 4th of July weekend
• July 12th my brother comes back into the country from being deployed in the military, so we'll probably go see him
• Hershey, PA (IF I reach my goal weight): July 30-August 1
• somewhere for at least a long weekend: August
• annual anniversary trip: mid-October

I am tried (but excited!) just thinking about it! Hopefully all those hotels have gym's in them :)

5. This week was Alexandria Restaurant Week, where a bunch of restaurants do either dinner for two for $35 or three-course price-fixed menus for $35. We are going to one of my favorite restaurants, Bastielle, tomorrow night for dinner. YUM! It will make all the working out totally worth it.

Other awesome Florida activities

What other super fun things can you do in west central Florida in the middle of January?

How about some shuffleboard?

A visit to the beach?

A performance by the Lipizzaner Stallions?

How about all three? :)

Tarpon Springs, Florida

One of the most fun things you can do in the Tampa area is head over to Tarpon Springs. This awesome Greek sponging community is full of life, great restaurants, fun shops and, well, sponges! We headed over there on Sunday while we were down visiting Brad's grandparents. My old favorites did not disappoint and I managed to navigate the rental car there with no getting lost! It's amazing how, after ten years, my nose will still lead me directly to flaming cheese and baklava...

Brad and his awesome grandparents
a little bit Hollywood... a little bit Tarpon

HELLAS!!!!!!

I love you, flaming cheese (look at all that grease!)

all smiles, post super-Greek-food lunch

Five for Friday

1. The news out of Haiti continues to be pretty grim. I'm running a donation challenge through Christina Saull Photography? I will match, penny for penny, any donation made between now and January 22 to a reputable aid organization. Details here. I realize the economy isn't great, but even a $5 or $10 donation can make all the difference.


2. On a lighter note, this weekend, Brad and I are headed down to Tampa to hang out for the weekend with these nice people (the grandparents-in-law):

The weather is supposed to be a little lousy but, quite frankly, I'll take rain and 70 degrees over wind at 20 degrees any time! I"m jockeying for a trip to Tarpon Springs for some awesome Greek food (mmmm... Hellas!) and/or a trip to some sort of stretch of sand. My toes really miss being in the sand. I'll even take cold beach, like we had last year:

3. My ten year high school reunion is coming up this summer. I am undecided as to whether I should go or not. The website which was set up is corny at best and many of the people who have expressed interest, well, I have no idea who most of them are! My graduating class was 680-ish and I was only really friends with about 100 of them. It just seems like kind of a waste to haul myself and the husband down to Tampa and spend a lot of money on people I didn't really know and/or care about. What do you think? To everyone who tells me to go, I respond with "But I'm friends with all the people I still want to keep in touch with... one person!" They usually change their mind on my attending after that statement. We'll see.


4. While in Tampa, I am really excited to be seeing an old friend from high school. Thanks to the joys of Facebook, he and I have gotten back in touch and I look forward to having lunch with him and his wife. We can talk about all the hilarious antics that us honors kids pulled off... and the shared misery of AP European History. Good times!


5. So they squirrels. HYPOTHETICALLY, the problem is solved (I emphasize hypothetically). They finished trapping early in the week and patched a bunch of holes. Now we begin the fight to get all the insulation in the attic replace since it is mucked up with squirrel what-have-you. Some friends of ours in Ohio are still dealing with their squirrel issue and they were told it could be up to a YEAR! I advised that they seriously need to lay some smack down. Hopefully the whole episode will soon be behind us and I can enjoy sleeping through the night, squirrel free, once again.

Five for Friday

1. So the holidays are over and "normal" life returns (in quotation marks because when is life really ever normal?). I had a good, relaxing holiday and hope you did too. We were in Ohio at my in-laws from Christmas Eve morning through Tuesday, the 29th. Then we came home and just kind of vegged out (or I did, Brad had to go back to work, poor thing). Getting up before 10am to go to work on Monday was disappointing all around. But, at the same time, it's nice to be back into some sort of routine now.

2. We got some snow last night, which was pretty, but kind of loses its luster after the holidays. Of course this snow fell on top of the huge mounds of snow left over from the snowpocolypse a few weeks ago. It's a shame that, almost four weeks later, there are still entire lanes on the road and intersections that have huge, six foot tall mounds of ice covered snow everywhere (I swear, I am not exaggerating!). In fact, I almost plowed into one trying to get in the proper turn lane to go to the grocery store the other day. I predict they will be gone soon... and soon, I mean around March.

3. It has been crazy cold in much of the country over the past week or so and D.C. was not immune. The wind is just crazy cold and it results in quite a bit of crankiness and general "hunkering down" that seems to be going on across the city. Personally, I don't plan on leaving the house all weekend, with the predicted wind chill of a ripe 19 degrees at noon tomorrow (thanks weather.com). This cold weather is killing my exercise routine, or maybe I'm actually burning more calories shivering?

4. Did anyone see that college football national championship game last night? Man, oh man. Normally, I am not the biggest Texas or Alabama fan, and didn't really go into the game rooting for anyone. But how could you not feel bad for a senior quarterback, the clear leader of a team that got screwed out of playing for last year's championship, who has lost the Heisman race TWICE, get hurt on the first drive of the game? The accounts that have been in the news today of him trying in vain to convince his coaches that he was alright during an unsuccessful game of catch with his Dad in the locker room is enough to get even the biggest Texas hater a little choked up.

Perhaps what makes me choked up the most is that college football season is over now.... it's a long way to August!

5. Seen any good movies lately? On Christmas Day, we saw "The Blind Side," which was the most feel-good, family-friendly (in-law-friendly) movie I have seen in years. Last Saturday, we froze our butts off and went out to see "Up in the Air," which I really enjoyed.

PS The squirrels? Oh yeah, they're still here!

'Tis the Season

Wishing all my faithful blog readers a very happy holidays, Merry Christmas and a joyous new year! See you on the flip side!