Snow, Wind, and Cold Oh My

      

     I'm writing this in a McDonald's up the highway  from my home while pup is having his sedated grooming. They'll do his annual blood work as well, so while an addition expenses, it won't have to be done with his set of boosters in May. I thought it was important to make sure all is well before he goes to sleep. Having pets is not thrifty, but the love you get back is priceless. He lives up to the first part of his kind, Shitzu, emphasis on the first part of the breed, but he's my boy and I would have had a really hard time going cold turkey empty nesting without him to care for and for him to keep me company. Over the weeks that DH was so sick, barely able to shower some days he was so exhausted, pup was there, keeping him company. He will be our last and I know I baby him, trained him poorly, but he seems to just belong with me.

     While I don't have school kids anymore, I still follow the district on social media. Schools are closing at 12:00 today. I hope this is all done within an hour or so of when the snow is supposed to start and we are home, out of the snow, wind, and cold by mid afternoon. Where my daughter goes to school, about 260 miles north, they are already closing highways due to blowing snow. While she is on a smallish campus, she does have a bit of a sprint between two afternoon classes on opposite sides of the campus. I remember those days -though I was at a college five times her size, and I remember the biting cold from my dorm on the far west, to the dining hall, the farthest building, besides other dorms, to the west. We would cut in and out of buildings on the most bitter days for a little reprieve. My son;s first apartment off campus was a bit of a walk, and I remember him complaining. DD2's off campus year, she would sometimes catch a bus, if the timing worked, to bring her the 10 blocks or so, up the main route, so she would then only have to walk a few freezing cold blocks to her house. I guess it makes young people hearty with stories to tell-like me, 35 years later.

     In my hours to kill, besides getting some work done, and visiting the blogging world, I will stop at the Aldi's here and  top off our groceries for the weekend. I plan to make both a big pot of soup and a hearty chili. I'm getting the bread maker out too to make cinnamon roll dough and some bread for the soup and I am out of yeast. I'd love to do more baking, but with just the two of us and staying home until Sunday and no work until Tuesday, it would likely go to waste. Plus, I do not need the calories. I'm assuming I can freeze 1/2 the cinnamon roll dough. I think I'll roll it all out, fill with the cinnamon and brown sugar goodness, cut it into the 12 rolls, but then freeze and store half before the second rise to bake at a later time. There's still bean and ham soup in the freezer, two meal portions froze separately, made from the Thanksgiving ham bone. I'll remove one container for a meal, to make room for freezing either half the soup or the chili. We have dinner theater tickets on Sunday, so between bean, chicken noodle, and chili, meals until Monday are taken care off, with leftovers going into the week. We won't starve, and other than to get the dog outside for his jobs, and then the inevitable shoveling, I'm staying put until Sunday. 
 I'm writing this in a McDonald's up the highway  from my home while pup is having his sedated grooming. They'll do his annual blood work as well, so while an addition expenses, it won't have to be done with his set of boosters in May. I thought it was important to make sure all is well before he goes to sleep. Having pets is not thrifty, but the love you get back is priceless. He lives up to the first part of his kind, Shitzu, emphasis on the first part of the breed, but he's my boy and I would have had a really hard time going cold turkey empty nesting without him to care for and for him to keep me company. Over the weeks that DH was so sick, barely able to shower some days he was so exhausted, pup was there, keeping him company. He will be our last and I know I baby him, trained him poorly, but he seems to just belong with me.

While I don't have school kids anymore, I still follow the district on social media. Schools are closing at 12:00 today. I hope this is all done within an hour or so of when the snow is supposed to start and we are home, out of the snow, wind, and cold by mid afternoon. Where my daughter goes to school, about 260 miles north, they are already closing highways due to blowing snow. While she is on a smallish campus, she does have a bit of a sprint between two afternoon classes on opposite sides of the campus. I remember those days -though I was at a college five times her size, and I remember the biting cold from my dorm on the far west, to the dining hall, the farthest building, besides other dorms, to the west. We would cut in and out of buildings on the most bitter days for a little reprieve. My son;s first apartment off campus was a bit of a walk, and I remember him complaining. DD2's off campus year, she would sometimes catch a bus, if the timing worked, to bring her the 10 blocks or so, up the main route, so she would then only have to walk a few freezing cold blocks to her house. I guess it makes young people hearty with stories to tell-like me, 35 years later.

In my hours to kill, besides getting some work done, and visiting the blogging world, I will stop at the Aldi's here and  top off our groceries for the weekend. I plan to make both a big pot of soup and a hearty chili. I'm getting the bread maker out too to make cinnamon roll dough and some bread for the soup and I am out of yeast. I'd love to do more baking, but with just the two of us and staying home until Sunday and no work until Tuesday, it would likely go to waste. Plus, I do not need the calories. I'm assuming I can freeze 1/2 the cinnamon roll dough. I think I'll roll it all out, fill with the cinnamon and brown sugar goodness, cut it into the 12 rolls, but then freeze and store half before the second rise to bake at a later time. There's still bean and ham soup in the freezer, two meal portions froze separately, made from the Thanksgiving ham bone. I'll remove one container for a meal, to make room for freezing either half the soup or the chili. We have dinner theater tickets on Sunday, so between bean, chicken noodle, and chili, meals until Monday are taken care off, with leftovers going into the week. We won't starve, and other than to get the dog outside for his jobs, and then the inevitable shoveling, I'm staying put until Sunday.