Snow Day!

Well, it finally came.  After much discussion about global warming and our unseasonably mild winter, on early Monday morning big flakes of white powder began dusting our yard and the surrounding mountains and kept falling until late Monday night.  In all we got about 3 inches here in the Ozarks.  Matt got to use our new snow shovel on the driveway - a gift from his parents at Christmas-time, and I spent a cozy day inside the house - cleaning, cooking, and catching up on some reading.

I took quite a few pictures of the snow: outside in the elements, from the deck, and looking out my kitchen window.

I kept trying to capture just how quickly it was coming down, how thick the flakes were, but - alas - I need different tools on my camera; apertures, diaphragms, stops to actually capture a torrent of minuscule flakes which are really the sum of a massive vortex.

When I wasn't trying to capture winter's majesty with my Nikon, I ran around the house with the Endust, the vacuum, and the laundry basket. I lit candles which had been neglected for the past month or so, as it seemed the perfect day to have the cozy ambience and musky fragrance wafting through the house. If we had a fireplace and a dog by the hearth as the snow fell outside of a nearby window it would have been a scene perfect for a Norman Rockwell piece; perhaps entitled "An Ozark Mountain Winter."

With all of my cleaning done, I decided to cook and do some reading.  For lunch I made a lovely salad from some leftover chicken breasts we had for dinner a couple of nights before, and also worked on making homemade ketchup to go along with the meatloaf I planned for the evening's dinner (a wonderful turkey meatloaf from Ina Garten's, "The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook"). Matt and I don't usually use the tomato-based condiment, and I had originally intended to run to the store to buy some Heinz Reduced Sugar ketchup.  However, the hubby had taken my wheels for the day (it has AWD and can get up the steep hills in an onslaught of snow), so I was left stranded on the mountain with the rear-wheel drive Mustang and my stocked refrigerator.  Luckily, I had all the essential components for making my own ketchup, and I have to say - it's a lot cheaper to do it on your own, and a lot tastier!  If you want the recipe click on the embedded link above, or look for it and other recipes under the Erica's Epicurean Creations tab at the bottom of the blog.

Matt came home to the smell of the ketchup on the stove, and the thousand candles I had lit throughout the house! Still, the onslaught to the olfactory senses was met warmly - literally - as it was so cold outside.  Matt conceded that the Mazda does very well in the snow; my argument for keeping the car - which Matt considers "a soccer-Mom mobile, for a woman who has no kids who play soccer" - in lieu of trading it in for a truck or bigger SUV.

We had our dinner, rested for a bit, and each retired to separate couches in the living room with our respective "reads" for the evening. It was a nice end to a snowy day.  If only we had that dog and a fireplace...