Kate
Showing posts with label weather. Show all posts
Showing posts with label weather. Show all posts
Monday, November 28, 2011
Putting the Bed to Bed
Monday, October 3, 2011
Fall Food: Time To Start the Oven
If you’re living in Virginia like us then you’re probably
stuck in the middle of the “do I, or don’t I?” debate over turning the heat on
for the first time this season. I just got home from work and already I’m in
sweats, slippers, a thermal and long sleeve robe. But I’m not complaining. I
LOVE fall!!!!! It’s my favorite season and while some folks are sadly putting
away their shorts and packing up their bbq grills – I’m gladly breaking out my
sweaters and dusting off the crock pot.
- Kate
It’s cool out there folks… and that means time for some
delicious, falltastic treats. Here are some of my favorites that made a showing
this past weekend.
Made a pot roast in my crock pot – yumms!! Pulled the recipe
from Williams Sonoma’s Slow Cooker
cookbook.
Baked a Streusel Kuchen for me and the hubby. I have some
apple butter left over from last fall and am happily eating this on my streusel
in between typing paragraphs.
Tea, tea and more tea. I love a good tea pot and cup. I have
a stackable pot/cup from Crate & Barrel that a friend got me a couple years
ago. It’s perfect for brewing tea for one (the hubs loathes tea). Paper Source has had some cute mugs in years past but could not track these down on their website.
- Kate
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Snowpocalypse – Part II
If you’re like me then you’re probably so over talking, thinking and listening to weather related stories. On that note, here’s the second - and thankfully final - installment of my snow story.
Sunday morning I was up early, the only one awake. I got Cannon on his leash and pulled on my boots. We went out the door and took a long walk in the snowy streets of Manassas. A plow was finally taking some turns around Russ’s neighborhood, which made the trek a lot easier than the day before. I was anxious to head back to my house but there was an amazing breakfast between me and the ride home. Um… scrambled eggs with cheese, toast, and avocados & dices tomatoes – yes sir, may I have another!!
The roads between here and there were still a mess! And there it was, the tree still lying up on my roof and power still out. Dan and I grabbed our shovels and started another round of clearing out the driveway. We only had to wait about 30 minutes before the power came back on. What an amazing moment – electric means light and heat and water! We wrapped up our work on the driveway as quick as we could. Dan headed back out to retrieve our things from our temporary shelter. I headed to the shed to grab a space heater to thaw out the pipes in the well pump house (is that PW county or what!). Things were looking up and fortunately so did I. I glanced up at the tree on the power lines and saw threads of smoke making their way through the branches. Our tree was on fire. Grr!
What to do? I headed back inside, grabbed my cell and dialed 911. I mean really, you just can’t make this stuff up. It only took a couple minutes before I heard the sirens, so out to the end of my driveway I went. My phone rings. It’s the fire department and they can’t find my house. I told them to just keep coming down the road and stop when they came to the woman in green earmuffs.
They had to shut down the road. Fortunately, having talked to Dan after the 911 dispatcher he’d turned around and come home. He beat the road closure and was just in time to see all the neighbors coming out to view the spectacle. He was also on time to see the sparks and the fire start. The fire department called the electric company. They arrived quickly and shut off the power to our house. Nooooooooo! That took care of the fire. The electric company then called a contracted crew and told them to come out to take down the tree. It was a couple hours until they showed up and another hour before they got the tree off the power lines. We were glad that the power went on immediately following that.
The crew told us they couldn’t take the tree of the house and as punishment they proceeded to drive off our driveway and get stuck in our yard… for four hours.
That night we enjoyed some pizza delivery, watched the Super Bowl and got warm – all with the circling yellow lights of the power-crew truck outside our window. We made a plan for the next day and for getting that tree off our roof before the next, impending storm.
Flash forward: we were lucky not to have any damage from the trees and after a couple hours the pipes thawed and we had water. We were fortunate to not get much snow (5”) from the next storm and now we’re just like the rest of the folks in Prince William County – we’re waiting for all this snow to melt.
Kate
Sunday morning I was up early, the only one awake. I got Cannon on his leash and pulled on my boots. We went out the door and took a long walk in the snowy streets of Manassas. A plow was finally taking some turns around Russ’s neighborhood, which made the trek a lot easier than the day before. I was anxious to head back to my house but there was an amazing breakfast between me and the ride home. Um… scrambled eggs with cheese, toast, and avocados & dices tomatoes – yes sir, may I have another!!
The roads between here and there were still a mess! And there it was, the tree still lying up on my roof and power still out. Dan and I grabbed our shovels and started another round of clearing out the driveway. We only had to wait about 30 minutes before the power came back on. What an amazing moment – electric means light and heat and water! We wrapped up our work on the driveway as quick as we could. Dan headed back out to retrieve our things from our temporary shelter. I headed to the shed to grab a space heater to thaw out the pipes in the well pump house (is that PW county or what!). Things were looking up and fortunately so did I. I glanced up at the tree on the power lines and saw threads of smoke making their way through the branches. Our tree was on fire. Grr!
What to do? I headed back inside, grabbed my cell and dialed 911. I mean really, you just can’t make this stuff up. It only took a couple minutes before I heard the sirens, so out to the end of my driveway I went. My phone rings. It’s the fire department and they can’t find my house. I told them to just keep coming down the road and stop when they came to the woman in green earmuffs.
They had to shut down the road. Fortunately, having talked to Dan after the 911 dispatcher he’d turned around and come home. He beat the road closure and was just in time to see all the neighbors coming out to view the spectacle. He was also on time to see the sparks and the fire start. The fire department called the electric company. They arrived quickly and shut off the power to our house. Nooooooooo! That took care of the fire. The electric company then called a contracted crew and told them to come out to take down the tree. It was a couple hours until they showed up and another hour before they got the tree off the power lines. We were glad that the power went on immediately following that.
The crew told us they couldn’t take the tree of the house and as punishment they proceeded to drive off our driveway and get stuck in our yard… for four hours.
That night we enjoyed some pizza delivery, watched the Super Bowl and got warm – all with the circling yellow lights of the power-crew truck outside our window. We made a plan for the next day and for getting that tree off our roof before the next, impending storm.
Flash forward: we were lucky not to have any damage from the trees and after a couple hours the pipes thawed and we had water. We were fortunate to not get much snow (5”) from the next storm and now we’re just like the rest of the folks in Prince William County – we’re waiting for all this snow to melt.
Kate
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Snowpocalypse - Part I
Heading into last weekend I was really annoyed that the pending storm was gonna keep me from a girl’s shopping trip to the Design House in Luckett’s, VA. We’d all been looking forward to it for weeks and I’d even made my wish list. The Design House only opens one weekend a month and I was prepared to spend some money! After all, I had to hunt down that pair of amazing horizontal striped curtains I saw in December.
Like a lot of people in the area I decided to work from home on Friday. Traffic can be a real mess when you’ve got an hour commute back home. The first flakes started to fall a little after 9 am and I took to Facebook to track the storm progress with the rest of NOVA. I watched, I waited and those 4-5” by 6 pm hadn’t materialized. Honestly, I felt let down. Well, shame on me because that’s about when it really started to pile up. Then it was back to business as usual; wrapped up work, made some dinner for me and Dan, walked the dog and headed to bed. Dan took a few trips outside to clear the snow, so we’d have less to do in the morning. At 10 pm the power went out. I wasn’t too worried. The power’s gone out during a storm before but NOVEC usually has the lights on within a couple hours. I tossed and turned all night. I kept waking up to see if the hall light had gone on. Nothing.
At 9 am I rolled out of bed, into a cold house. The storm was kick’n. There was a good 10” or so on the driveway, 15”+ on the lawn, and I started shoveling. Dan joined me a little while later and we talked about what to do without power… and heat… and water. A friend of ours, Russ, had offered for us to stay at his place and we decided to get the driveway cleared, pack up the family and hit the road. These three simple things took what seemed like forever. As I was putting together sleeping bags, pillows, a cooler of perishables and other items, plus talking to my mom on the phone – it happened. Out of my living room window I saw the tree on the side of my house falling. One part of the tree was falling away and onto the power lines. The other part of the tree was falling toward the house and me. I called for my dog to come with me (thank you for listening, Cannon) and we ran to the other side of our small house. Meanwhile, Dan was in the driveway watching the tree fall and calling for me. We were so fortunate to not have the tree come through the roof! But, this was a sign to start moving a little faster and it wasn’t long until we were on the road.
I’m not sure how many people had to venture out into the storm on Saturday but it was treacherous. The snowy, barely plowed roads, in combination with the snow still falling made in incredibly difficult to see. It was an unbelievably bumpy ride to Russ’s but I was grateful that Dan was driving and that we have 4-wheel drive! We saw few vehicles on the road – more off the road than on the road. One or two people were trying to make their way in a minivan or sedan. This didn’t really work out well for either vehicle. Russ’s neighborhood may have seen one pass of the snowplow but his street hadn’t seen any action. Dan barreled through the snow with his truck to make it to the driveway. The three of us - Dan, Cannon and I – were glad to get inside. Almost immediately, I went into guest room and took a nap. I was a million miles away from worrying about missing the girl’s shopping trip.
Worried about the house, Dan headed back to our place to check on things. Nothing new, still no power. The snow had ended and there was even a little blue sky peeking out. Back at Russ’s we had a nice dinner, which I’d brought along from our house and then Dan headed back out to help dig out some friends who didn’t realize there wasn’t a shovel in the house. Yikes! We ended the night watching Gran Torino (great flick!) and then off to bed. We were exhausted and sore from all the shoveling and it was a good thing we were getting our rest because there was more trouble in store for us on Sunday!
Kate
Like a lot of people in the area I decided to work from home on Friday. Traffic can be a real mess when you’ve got an hour commute back home. The first flakes started to fall a little after 9 am and I took to Facebook to track the storm progress with the rest of NOVA. I watched, I waited and those 4-5” by 6 pm hadn’t materialized. Honestly, I felt let down. Well, shame on me because that’s about when it really started to pile up. Then it was back to business as usual; wrapped up work, made some dinner for me and Dan, walked the dog and headed to bed. Dan took a few trips outside to clear the snow, so we’d have less to do in the morning. At 10 pm the power went out. I wasn’t too worried. The power’s gone out during a storm before but NOVEC usually has the lights on within a couple hours. I tossed and turned all night. I kept waking up to see if the hall light had gone on. Nothing.
At 9 am I rolled out of bed, into a cold house. The storm was kick’n. There was a good 10” or so on the driveway, 15”+ on the lawn, and I started shoveling. Dan joined me a little while later and we talked about what to do without power… and heat… and water. A friend of ours, Russ, had offered for us to stay at his place and we decided to get the driveway cleared, pack up the family and hit the road. These three simple things took what seemed like forever. As I was putting together sleeping bags, pillows, a cooler of perishables and other items, plus talking to my mom on the phone – it happened. Out of my living room window I saw the tree on the side of my house falling. One part of the tree was falling away and onto the power lines. The other part of the tree was falling toward the house and me. I called for my dog to come with me (thank you for listening, Cannon) and we ran to the other side of our small house. Meanwhile, Dan was in the driveway watching the tree fall and calling for me. We were so fortunate to not have the tree come through the roof! But, this was a sign to start moving a little faster and it wasn’t long until we were on the road.
I’m not sure how many people had to venture out into the storm on Saturday but it was treacherous. The snowy, barely plowed roads, in combination with the snow still falling made in incredibly difficult to see. It was an unbelievably bumpy ride to Russ’s but I was grateful that Dan was driving and that we have 4-wheel drive! We saw few vehicles on the road – more off the road than on the road. One or two people were trying to make their way in a minivan or sedan. This didn’t really work out well for either vehicle. Russ’s neighborhood may have seen one pass of the snowplow but his street hadn’t seen any action. Dan barreled through the snow with his truck to make it to the driveway. The three of us - Dan, Cannon and I – were glad to get inside. Almost immediately, I went into guest room and took a nap. I was a million miles away from worrying about missing the girl’s shopping trip.
Worried about the house, Dan headed back to our place to check on things. Nothing new, still no power. The snow had ended and there was even a little blue sky peeking out. Back at Russ’s we had a nice dinner, which I’d brought along from our house and then Dan headed back out to help dig out some friends who didn’t realize there wasn’t a shovel in the house. Yikes! We ended the night watching Gran Torino (great flick!) and then off to bed. We were exhausted and sore from all the shoveling and it was a good thing we were getting our rest because there was more trouble in store for us on Sunday!
Kate
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