Stir Crazy? Cabin Fever??

Call it what you want but I am definitely experiencing it. OMG! I've been at home since Thursday. Last Thursday. Minus a quick jaunt to the gas station, the tiny grocery store down the street and Burger King. I was home, alone, from Thursday night through midnight Tuesday morning and I was about to go nuts. There's only so much shoveling one person can do before they go insane. There's only so much talking to my dogs that I can do before I start to feel crazy. I mean they're cute but they don't really talk back and the lack of interaction with other humans was getting to be a bit too much.

Will was home less than 3 days and he just left again. I'm so over this job. OVER. IT. There are only 6 people left on his team that can fly these Vice President trips, so every.single.time. they leave, they're all going. He used to have a few more guys on the team but they either got out of the military, got deployed or are on leave. It's ridiculous that they can't have more people on the team because I would be a lot less stressed if he wasn't having to do 15 jobs at work and then come home & deal with phone calls all night, PLUS being gone every single weekend. This is the 5th weekend in a row that he's been gone, not including all of the trips during the week too. It's just taxing and tiring and I need a break from his constant travels! Come on May!!

So, as I'm sure you are all well aware, MD got blasted with another big storm Tuesday night through yesterday. An additional 22 inches fell in that span of time. That's in addition to the 32" we had over the weekend. Our angel-neighbor down the street came through on Monday and cleared a decent path on the driveway with his snowblower so I didn't have to shovel an entire parking space for Will's truck. It wasn't quite wide enough though as I quickly found out at 12:30 at night when Will finally made it home & tried to turn into the driveway and couldn't fit. There I was, out there, shoveling like crazy in the middle of the night. Ugh. I started having severe chest pains and was wheezing and thought I was going to die. Asthma + cold air + rigorous activity = not good! Thankfully, I didn't drop dead from a heart attack & despite still wheezing a few times a day, I'm okay.

Will and I did more shoveling (imagine that!) on Tuesday and we were able to get the rest of the driveway from the back bumper of my car to the street cleared. Finally. Not that I can really go anywhere because all the stores are still closed. I'm so sick of shoveling. I am going to buy a snowblower. Watch...we'll buy one and it won't snow again for 15 years!!

Since Will had to leave today, he wanted to take me for a drive down the road (yeah, yeah...stay off the roads...blah, blah, blah) so we went into our little downtown area & then to Burger King. I hate BK but that was the only place open besides the 7-11. I stopped there too. lol Loaded up on peanut M&Ms, Combos and those little powdered donuts that come in a bag. We depleted our junk food stash over the last few days. Shoveling is hard work & leaves ya starving!

Yesterday, in the middle of the blizzard, Will tried to build me a snowman. I've never really built a snowman because I'm from SC and it doesn't snow there. Well, the snow yesterday was very powdery so my snowman (woman, really) was very small. If Will had been here over the weekend, we could've built a life-size elephant out of snow. That snow was very heavy & wet and perfect for building snow people and/or animals. I wanted a pink snowwoman. She didn't turn out as nicely as I had pictured in my head. And I couldn't find the appropriate things to use to decorate her properly. She looks a little ghetto. Oh well, at least I have a snowwoman sitting on my deck & she has pretty jade green color button eyes. LOL Just pretend she has a nose & a mouth. And that she doesn't look like she's bleeding internally. LOL My not-so-fabulous idea to spray her pink using food coloring made her look kind of bloody. Oops.




Here's some other pictures from yesterday. Behind this pile/shovel is our 4' tall fence. It's pretty much buried at this point. We should see it again sometime around May.



Poor little Scarlett. She wants so badly to go outside but she can't. She's too short. Well, all dogs except Great Danes are too short. She sits here on the window seat every day looking out onto the frozen tundra.



This icicle is gigantic. It's about 4' long now. Drip. Drip. Drip. I wonder if it'll reach the ground before it breaks off.



What is left of our 6' shrubs. They've been reduced to 2' tall piles of frozen sticks. I hated those shrubs anyway so I'm glad to see them go. Now I can finally get that picket fence I've been wanting. lol



Our very snowy roof. Should've bought a snow rake (whatever that is) and cleared the roof off but we're gamblers like that. Figured we'd just wait and see how much weight this 80 year old house can take. So far, so good. No collapses, yet.



Oh and today while we were out being rule-breakers and not staying home, we took a drive through the Wal-Mart parking lot. Not because we wanted to go there but because that's how you get to the Chick-fil-a, which was closed, btw. Wal-mart has only plowed about 1/3 of each aisle. So, these piles are going to get much, much bigger in the next few days.



Here's the main street in our little town. Look! You can see my dirty, streaky windshield! I tore my wiper blade last week but whatev. Clearly, I haven't been out to get a new one yet! Anyhow, the people on this road are still plowed in. I think if I lived on this street, I'd be out there every time the plow came through so I could keep my car semi-clear. Shrug. Guess they had other things to do, you know, like watching Rosanne reruns on TVLand.



Obviously, 7-11 knows what's up. Their parking lot was so clean!! Look at their big ol pile. Almost up to the bottom of the sign!! I bet they've done a ton of business this week.



This is our street. The first time I've seen black top in a week! Finally. Too bad all these people insist on parking in the street. Probably could've been a lot more clear if their cars wouldn't have been in the road. I'm sure it's all refreezing as I speak though. Slushy. Should be fun tomorrow morning!!



I cannot even fathom what another 12" of snow is going to look like. I've read some reports online that say this storm that is coming on Monday could drop another foot of snow. That is going to be insane. I just hope this doesn't melt anytime soon because our basement is going to flood horribly & there is no way I can deal with that all alone!



I am really, really hoping that I can get out of this house tomorrow. I NEED to do some thrifting. Or window shopping. Or something. I just need to get out of this house for a few hours and do something, anything. Well, anything except shoveling.


As I said before, I'm home alone all weekend so you know what that means - time to sit here w/ my junk food & catch up on blogs!! Can't wait to see what you all have been doing. Hopefully you've all been doing lots of thrifting so I'll have some eye candy to hold me over until I can get out of this mess & go do some junking of my own.

*THE BLIZZARD* Part 3

Ugh. Every muscle in my upper body is aching. My arms feel like wet noodles and I can barely even pick up the coffee pot to pour a cup of much needed caffeine. I feel like crap!! It snowed most of the day yesterday and when it finally stopped around 4, I swear I broke out into a chorus of "hallelujah". Of course, that's when the real *fun* began. Not!! I had to do more shoveling, which I might add, is one heck of a workout! Who knew! Obviously not me, because I've never had to shovel 32" of snow before.

My doggies were not happy with their 2' diameter patch of ground I had previously cleared for them so I had to make it bigger. They still weren't happy. Marty kept trying to figure out how to get up & over the 'wall' of snow. Silly dog.

He looked to the right:



He looked to the left:



Finally, he thought he'd try to jump up onto the top of the snow. That didn't work out like he'd planned and he promptly sank into 3' of snow.



Then he looked at me like I was the crazy one. Meh, whatever. I warned him that would happen & he didn't listen.



Meanwhile, Scarlett was back on the deck, surveying the situation. She didn't feel the need to do any belly flops into the snow.



Earlier in the day, I had shoveled a path from my front porch down the walkway and made it within 5' of my car! I felt like I'd really accomplished something. The snow was 28" deep at that point. I started to feel dizzy so I came in to take a break when my fabulous down-the-street neighbor came over with his snowblower! I'm telling ya, if I hadn't been sitting inside in nothing but thermal underwear, I would've ran out & kissed the man! He cut a path from the road, up the sidewalk to my front porch, back down the walkway that I had just shoveled and then out our driveway!! He's my new best friend!! Of course, after the snow stopped, an additional 5" had fallen so I had to shovel again, but still, it wasn't nearly as bad as it would've been had he not come over!!

Here's a good view of how deep the snow is by my front porch. Please ignore all of the crap that's on the porch! lol



And this is what the view is from my driveway into my back yard.



And our 4' tall fence, which has maybe 6" sticking up above the snow!!



This is the only part of my SUV that is still visible. This tiny little patch by the tire!



Well, that's not true. Here you can see about 4" of what used to be my windshield wipers! lol



After I finished shoveling the walk again, I started trying to dig out a space for Will's truck. I shoveled for a good hour and only ended up with a spot big enough to park a golf cart. I ran out of energy and daylight. Look at this great sunset though.



I came inside and collapsed in my chair in my office, read a few blogs, at microwaved food for dinner & was asleep by 9:00 last night.

Now, the sun is up & I get to go outside and start shoveling again. Whee! Will's flight has been delayed until tomorrow so at least I have another whole day to get him a spot cleared out! Did I mention we're supposed to get more snow on Tuesday/Wednesday?? It's pretty to look at but it'd be a lot more fun if Will was here to help me shovel!! And, for the record, if we get orders to anywhere that regularly gets snow like this, the first damn thing we're buying is a snowblower!!!

*THE BLIZZARD* Part 2

Wow. Just wow. I realized it's an overused phrase on the internet but I am having trouble thinking of adequate words other than those 2. lol

Last night, around 10, I measured 8" on the top of the patio table. I took this picture around 1 this morning before I went to bed. I'd say there's 10" or so on the table.



This was the patio table at 6:30 this morning. I measured 19" but couldn't find the top of the table so I'm thinking it's a little more than that!



I tried to clear a path off the deck & into the yard for the puppies. I couldn't tell how many steps I had already gone down, missed a step & ended up in a drift that was waist-deep. Thought I was going to be stuck for days!!



Once I got unstuck, I tried to shovel them a little patch of yard. This took serious effort! I can see why people tend to have heart attacks whilst shoveling!



Neither dog would come off the deck. The dogs peed on.the.deck. lol Poor doggies. They would've been buried if they tried to get off the deck though so whatev!

This picture is blurry as hell but take a look at the garbage can lids. Those bushes beside it are usually around 6' tall. That's a 40 gallon trash can, btw.



Oh, and this little white blob that looks like a smart car? Yeah, that's my mid size SUV. Pretty sure I won't be driving that anytime soon. lol



Did I mention it's still snowing and we're still under a blizzard warning until 2200 tonight? I think they're still calling for another 10" of this stuff. We have snow drifts that are maybe 6" from covering our 4' tall fence! I am amazed. And a little irritated that Joe Biden decided to go to Colorado this weekend, thus leaving me (and all of the other wives/families of the people that have to fly w/ him) home alone during the worst snowstorm in MD history!! That's just sort of a jackass thing to do, don't you think? I'm not sure how Will thinks he's going to get home tomorrow & even if he does, I'm not sure where he's planning on parking because I can tell ya now that I'm so not shoveling that whole driveway!

I am cold, I'm hungry, I'm tired because my sciatic nerve is killing me and I cannot get comfortable when I try to go to sleep & only got 4 hours of shut-eye last night and I need to go start shoveling so hopefully the doggies can do their business somewhere other than my deck! God help me. It's going to be a hell of a day!!

*THE BLIZZARD* Part 1

Hello my few & faithful readers! Just some quick pictures of the weather today. This is what my view was this morning around 10, right before the snow started falling. You can see the leftover snow from the Tues night storm.



The snow started falling around 10:15 but didn't stick until around 4:30. I took a long nap between 12:30 & 3 and was hoping that when I woke up that it would have started sticking already but that didn't happen! Why did I take such a long nap? Well, because Will was up at 3:00 this morning & left at 3:30 and I was wide awake for hours after that!! So, a nap was in order! Plus, I forgot to make any coffee when I came downstairs at 7:30 and I was dealing with a lack of caffeine for real!

Anyhow, I ran out first thing this morning to gas up my car & was planning on running into Walmart to pick up some last minute items (non-perishable foods I'd actually eat!) but the traffic just trying to turn into Wal-Mart was insane. I decided to come home and hang out here for a few hours until the madness died down. Ha!

Instead of going back to Walmart, I made a quick little trip at 4:15 to the grocery store down the street. That place is stuck in a time-warp. Feels like something straight outta the 1970s. Not that I was alive in the 1970s but I'm imagining what it must have been like. Bought some essentials (cheese puffs & cheez-its - sensing a pattern here!) and by the time I was on my way back home, the snow was really coming down and sticking. Lookie:





Will made it safely to Colorado earlier and he said they didn't have as much snow on the ground as we did. Hahahaha - too bad for you! Oh, and I just read the funniest thing on Facebook:

Snow on da' ground.....snow on da' ground..... Drivin' like a fool wit da' snow on the ground....look at ya now - car spinnin around.....drivin like a fool wit da' snow on Da ground!!!

That is such an accurate statement for the people in Maryland!

Well, I'm going to relax for a while with my pot of coffee & stack of magazines & then go out and get a head start on shoveling! Don't wanna wait until tomorrow afternoon and then have to try and shovel 30" of this stuff outta the way!

I *heart* Winter

No, really, I do. I love winter. Especially this winter. The last 2 winters? Eh, not so much. But this one? Oh yeah! We've had at least 5 accumulating snows so far this season. Last year? I think there was 2. The year before? One. Did I mention I love snow? Well, I do. Maybe it's because I grew up in SC and we very rarely saw snow. Maybe once every 4 or 5 years. And then, if we were extremely lucky, we'd get 2 or 3 inches. So, to me, having a true winter is still kind of new & exciting.

I woke up on Tuesday morning to this amazing sunrise.



And then yesterday morning, I woke up to this beautiful sight.







Unfortunately, it warmed up to 40 degrees so there was a lot of melting. Our ground is still covered though and really, that's all I care about! I really want to live in a place where the ground is white from November through at least March. I know I'm crazy but I'd much rather see pretty white snow than the ugly, brown, dead grass all winter!

So, as I'm sure you're all aware, the Mid Atlantic is supposed to get hammered by another storm tomorrow and into Saturday. Will is leaving tomorrow for the weekend. Which means I'm going to be home alone, again. Well, maybe not. My friend mentioned coming over on Friday to spend the night so we'll have a slumber party with our doggies and consume mass amounts of diet coke & Reese's peanut butter cups. And then on Saturday, I'll solicit her help in shoveling! Sounds like a plan, dontcha think?

Oh, btw, Will & I still haven't come to any real conclusions as to where we want to go after his Pentagon job is up in July 2011. We have to have the list done by 18 February. I would think that this would be one of those times where we'd be having some important talks and trying to really figure it out but so far, that hasn't really happened. Isn't it terrible that part of me wants to base our next location on how many thrift stores are in the area? Hahaha Sad but true. I'm not sure when/if he & I will find time to sit down and talk about this. He's gone all this weekend, part of next week, all of next weekend. And then the list has to be turned in. At this point, we should probably just hang a damn map on the wall & throw some darts at it & see where they land. Can you tell I'm a little frustrated?! Wish us luck.

Well, I need to go. Gotta do some chores, check the chocolate & diet coke supplies, get ready for the big storm! Ooh, I bought a new shovel yesterday too. It's one of those "back savers" with the bent handle. Can't wait to try that out! lol

Brrr! My Toilet is Frozen!

Happy New Year guys!! What did you do to celebrate? I did nothing. Absolutely nothing. lol Well, I guess that's not entirely true. I posted on Etsy, drank a few cherry wheat beers and talked to Will on the phone. Oh, and watched our jackass of a neighbor shoot fireworks into our yard. That was entertaining!

Remember last week when I said I had lots of things I wanted to accomplish while Will was gone? Yeah, approximately 17% of those things actually happened. I did manage to take pictures of linens & list those but otherwise, yeah, I stayed holed up in this house for the majority of the week. In fact, I think I've been out of the house *maybe* 5 hours since last Saturday! I'm finding that it's just too windy & cold to go anywhere. I mean this wind is freaking ridiculous right now. The windchill is 2. TWO. It is so cold that the water in the toilet in the 1/2 bath off of the kitchen froze solid overnight. I've never had that happen. Hell, I didn't even know that COULD happen!!

So, Will is coming home today, finally. The first half of the week seemed to fly by but since Thursday it's been really dragging. And, as usual, he's bringing lots of goodies home with him. This time instead of Belgian chocolates, I'm getting chocolate rum from the Virgin Islands. Sounds delicious to me and maybe drinking a bit of that will help warm me up!! He's also bringing back rum balls and rum cake. And jewelry. I'm so spoiled!!

Will is supposed to be off for the rest of the week starting on Tuesday and I'm hoping we can take some day trips out of Baltimore. I am starting to go stir crazy being home all alone!! I'm sure he'll want to stay home & relax since he's been gone for a week though. We always run into this same issue when he comes home. He wants to stay home and I want to go out. He wants to eat every meal here and I want to go out. lol See, he gets to eat out 3 times a day while he's gone and when he comes home, he's ready for home cooked meals. On the other hand, I'm eating at home 3x a day while he's gone so by the time he gets back, I'm ready for someone else to do the cooking, preferably that someone being a chef at a restaurant!

I think it's almost time to take down the Christmas trees too. Although I love looking at the trees, it's time to get my house back in order and the first thing I need to do is get the Christmas stuff outta here. Even my pretty retro tree in my office needs to go!! Hopefully I'll get them put up in a more timely manner next Christmas. I feel like I *just* got these things decorated and now it's already time to put them away again.

I have a huge list of things I should be doing today. Things like cleaning and organizing and taking down the decorations and getting all of my linens put away. None of that sounds like a good time though so I'm thinking I'll put on some thermal underwear, bundle up in layers and brave the elements and go do a little retail therapy. Tomorrow is, of course, 25% off day at all of the thrift stores but I haven't left the house since Thursday so I think I need to get out of here before I go insane!! Besides, I'm pretty sure my car heater works better than the house heater so at least I can finally warm up!!

I'm leaving you with a picture of my favorite ornament on my retro tree. It's all scratched up but I love it so! I'm loving my new camera! I'm so not good at taking pictures and I have a ton to learn but I'm so happy that I'm not stuck using Will's work camera anymore. I should probably sit down & actually read the manual that came with the camera but let's face it: that's kind of boring!

Did I Say I Liked Winter?!?

I am a big fat LIAR! We had snow on Tuesday during the day. Several inches. Then that night it sleeted another couple of inches. Then early, early yesterday morning (like 0300 early) everything iced over. Complete mess!! And then yesterday during the day it warmed up to almost 40 degrees. But last night it dropped down to 22. So, everything refroze. Into a huge sheet of ice.

So, anyhow, I get dressed this morning thinking I'll go to the VV for 25% off day (for the cardholders, which I am!) and I spent a good hour taking my time, doing my hair and make up, since after the VV I had to drive the 40 miles down to Will's work and get my ID card renewed and I didn't want to look like poo, which is how I am still feeling, but I digress. So, I spend an hour getting dressed and I look good and I'm feeling better and I gather all of my crap to walk outside and I almost broke my neck! The "path" from the door to my car is like an ice skating rink. I have absolutely no traction, despite my wearing ugly snow boots, and I almost broke my neck!! I mean I realize SNOW boots are meant for SNOW but come on. I thought I was being smart by wearing something made for winter weather. Hell, if I'm going to be slipping and sliding all over the place I might as well wear cute shoes.

I managed to get to my car and throw all of my stuff in the passenger side seat and then I had to trek all the way back across the front yard to drop off a package at the mail box. And then walk back over to my car. I wasn't feeling very optimistic by this point because if I couldn't even walk across the yard, how was my car going to get out of the drive way. Well, simply put, it didn't. Which is why I'm home now, on blogger, in quite the bitchy mood. See, our little drive way is basically a mud pit and it has been since the beginning of December. The snow and rain have just turned our gravel parking spots into muck and it's nasty. Will's truck was able to leave Tuesday, yesterday and today. My car has been parked since Monday and there is ice all around it. I don't think I'm going anywhere anytime soon & I'm starting to go stir crazy sitting in this house!

I was so mad a few minutes ago that I ventured outside to our back yard (another big ol sheet of ice) and I went into our shed and found a spade/hoe thingamajig and I started hacking up the back yard. You know, a path from the shed to the back door. Not the *whole* yard. I'm sure I looked like a giant idiot doing that but hey, it worked and I had traction while walking!! So, I may try to go out and do that to the front yard too and maybe around my car and maybe I'll get to leave this place this afternoon. Our driveway is in the shade though so I doubt much melting will take place and trying to hack away at ice is quite tiring!

I guess I could make good use of this time by doing Etsy related things or cleaning the house but I'd much rather be at the Value Village and Target (which, btw, is having another huge clearance sale!). Thanks for listening to my rants. I'm feeling a bit better!!

A couple of pictures!

Hey y'all! Will and I had a wonderful day here in snowy Wyoming. After breakfast and running a couple of errands, we headed out to the Gros Ventre Road that we loved traveling on last summer. It's the area we saw the most buffalo and the charming little barn on Mormon Row. We drove down the road for a couple of miles before we hit a little buffalo-jam and had to turn around! We drove down the road a couple more miles and stopped into the Grand Teton Visitor Center and took some pictures and threw some snowballs at each other! We came back to town and headed to Bubba's BBQ for a late lunch and then came back to the room and took a nap! Will is working an 8 hour shift tonight and the weather is still cold & snowy but it's so beautiful! I read earlier that another huge storm is coming this way and should arrive on Christmas Eve and stick around through Christmas Day and that night too and they're expecting a lot more snow than this storm produced! Eeeeeeeek! I am so in love!! Anyhow, here's a few pictures I was able to take today. They aren't the best quality but I hope you enjoy them anyway!!

Greetings from snowy Jackson Hole!

Hey y'all! I made it safely out here and I am having a great time. I've come to realize that I could definitely move here, even without Target and good thrift stores because it is just so beautiful here that I'd gladly sacrifice those things in exchange for seeing these views every day!

My flights were both on time yesterday, which is a miracle and I arrived out here about 12:30. Will and I went and grabbed a late lunch at one of our favorite restaurants here, Sidewinders, and then we came back to the room so I could take a much needed nap. At that point I had been awake for 30-something hours!! We ran to the grocery store last night and came back and sat in front of the fireplace and watched the snow fall.

Speaking of snow, we're supposed to get another 10-18 inches today and I am so in love! I've never seen so much snow before in my life and this place looks like a total winter wonderland. This is the best Christmas EVER!! We're heading out in a bit to run some errands and then we may drive up to the Grand Teton Park today and do a little sight seeing. I'm hoping to see a lot of animals and have lots of photos to share tonight! Here's a picture from our hotel room window yesterday of the slopes over at Snow King Resort. Add another foot (yes, foot!!) of snow and that's what it looks like today!



Hope you all had a great weekend, full of holiday festivities and time with your families!

Naked Trees

You can definitely tell that winter is on its' way. All of the beautiful leaves that were hanging on the trees last week are now scattered all over yards and streets and the poor little trees are so naked. Here are 2 pictures I took last week looking out of my craft room






Beautiful, huh? Look at how colorful those leaves are. My intentions last week when I took these pictures was to run up the road to the state park on the weekend and take lots of pretty pictures. Of course that didn't happen because someone whose name I won't mention (ahem, Will) wanted to paint instead. And now I'm regretting not going because all the leaves are GONE! Oh, our Weeping Willow is still full of leaves, but I suspect those will just fall off without any real color change. Here are 2 pictures of the same part of the yard I just took a second ago. See the naked little trees?





I'm going to miss looking out the windows and seeing beautiful colors everywhere. Buuuut, I'm also excited about winter. I love winter, really. The cold, crisp air, snow (man, I *REALLY* love snow!), all the yummy soups we make for dinner, ice skating, frozen waterfalls. LOVE.IT. Some people hate winter but I really like it. Perhaps it's because I grew up down south, where "winter" is anything under 45 degrees. Y'all think I'm kidding, don't you? Haha Nope. It was a "cold day in Hell" if the mercury dropped below freezing!

And snow. We hardly ever saw snow. Maybe half an inch every 5 years. And the entire 3+ years I lived in Charleston, it never snowed once! Now, where I grew up in SC it would snow maybe .5" every 5 years and then every 10 years or so we'd get a "big" snowfall, which in SC terms means anything over an inch! If the forecast predicted any sort of frozen precipitation, the entire state would shut down. Down south we just aren't prepared for any sort of frozen stuff. The grocery store shelves would be empty, people would be stock piling like they were preparing for Armageddon. Of course if you live down south, you know I'm telling the truth. But people that have never lived down there don't really believe that the entire town/state will shut down until they experience it for themselves.

Back in 2001, my boyfriend moved to SC from New Hampshire, a state which is frozen and covered in snow for something like 10 months out of the year, and he didn't believe me when I told him that if it ever snowed while he was living there that the entire city would go nuts, stockpile like lunatics and then the city would shut down until all traces of snow melted. Luckily for me, within 3 or so months of him moving down we had a HUGE snowfall. Now, huge by SC standards is probably a lot different than say, South Dakota. Or New Hampshire. But it was HUGE to SC. I remember the day like it was yesterday. It started snowing one afternoon around 3:00 and when we got off of work, I took him to the grocery store to show him the pandemonium. He couldn't believe people were acting like that. We took pictures to send to his friends back in NH. The bread aisle was completely empty, no lunch meat, no canned goods, no milk, even the fresh meat section was almost empty. LOL I'm telling ya, people down south ain't playing around when it comes to snow. We ended up with 7 or 8 inches of snow, the town was shut down for 3 days and that was the last time there was considerable snow in SC.

So, now that I just went off on a tangent, lemme get back on track! Yeah, I love winter. Especially winter up here in Maryland, because we actually get a couple of snow days each year. Last December, I was home alone because Will was overseas in Africa, and it snowed a good 6" one day. It was beautiful! Of course the next day it all melted. Boo! Then a day or two after that, some jackass decided to drive a little too fast down a very narrow road leading into our neighborhood, hit a patch of ice, took out some utility poles and we lost power. So, there I was in my old house, freezing, pregnant, no friends or family anywhere around, my husband halfway across the world. It SUCKED! Each time I called the power company, I kept getting the runaround. Oh, the power would be on in 2 hours, then 4, then 6 and finally I spoke to an actual person, explained my situation and told him I needed a straight answer because if the power wasn't going to be on for several days, I needed to know so I could pack my crap and drive down to SC. Yeah, I drove to SC. Ugh!

And the year before that, on Valentine's Day no less, we had a terrible ice storm. Terrible. Like a good half inch or more of ice coating every single surface. We lost power then too, but Will was home that time. Although I was very sick with a terrible winter cold and thought I would surely die. That storm saw us sitting in a old drafty house for HOURS, then trying to find a pet-friendly hotel for the night, finally driving all the way over to West Virginia to stay with Will's aunt & uncle, driving all the way back home the next morning because the power company said the electricity was back on, realizing it wasn't, driving 70 something miles down to Virginia to a pet-friendly motel....on and on and on. It was insane.

Wow, I guess it probably sounds like I don't like the winter very much after all! But I do. When we still have power! And I'm excited that it's only 2 weeks until Thanksgiving. And Christmas is coming too and I love decorating for Christmas! We usually go all out but I'm not sure what we'll do this year. Looks like Will is going to be back in Wyoming for 2 weeks during the holidays so I'm not sure if I'll stay here or fly out there. I don't want to decorate as much as I normally do if I'm not even going to be at home to enjoy it. But, I don't want to sit around a naked house either. Hmm, decisions, decisions.

Oh, here's a picture of my cute little coat I bought at the VV on Monday. It's actually dark black but I had to lighten the picture in order to show the detail of the trim. And check out the brooch. That's the one I won a few weeks ago over at Lisa's Retro Style . Looks fabulous, doesn't it?



Ignore the ugly pink price tag I've yet to remove!

Anyhoo, I suppose I've rambled on enough for one day. I need more coffee, I need to figure out if my 5 year old camera is going to live to see another day so I can take more pictures of stuff for Etsy and I need to let the puppies outside. Oh, and catch up on some of my favorite bloggy pals! Have a great weekend, y'all!