Back to work tomorrow.

Michael took these on his Blackberry as we were coming home from the grocery store (pharmacy, Target, lunch…)

Took the plow three tries to get up the hill, and they ended up losing the chains on at least one of the rear wheels in the process.

Yeah, there are some drawbacks to living on a hill.

Night pictures were taken by Michael; I’d gone to bed.

And it’s still snowing…

It rained most of the afternoon, until about six.

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No traffic:

Moments later…
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Here you go Nathan:

Goody Two-Shoes noun
A smugly virtuous person.

Etymology
After the title character in The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes, a children’s book believed to have been written by Oliver Goldsmith

In this moralistic nursery tale, Margery is an orphan who has only one shoe. One day, when she gets the full pair, she runs about shouting, “Two shoes!” Eventually she becomes rich and educated through her virtue and hard work.

The word Goody was a polite term of address for a woman of humble social status. It’s a contraction of the word goodwife and was formerly used as a title in a manner similar to the current Mrs.

Someone doesn’t want me to check my e-mail before leaving for work.

Just a note: We do, in fact, have heat in the house. Not that you could tell by the way those two are cuddled up together.

Or the way Kit is currently, pitifully, leaning against my legs, as if attempting to warm her poor, cold self against any heat source she can find.

Or perhaps I just should have.

I’ve read some good books recently. And… um…

Hey, look at the time! Gotta run!

It’s time for another round of Wednesday Word Association.

Today’s word: watch

I’ve been baking a lot recently, but I haven’t been very good about photographing what I’ve been baking. This weekend, however, I took the camera into the kitchen, and had Michael help me get pictures.

For some reason, bread always felt intimidating to me. Sure, I could make quick breads and cookies, but I never experimented with yeast as a child, so although I knew the very basics of how things worked, bread was never anything I felt I could do well, since I wasn’t 100% sure about the process.

I decided this needed to change.

Here’s the thing about bread: it doesn’t have very many ingredients (excluding the egg wash, there are only four ingredients in this recipe: water, yeast, salt, and flour. Although the total time is long, most of the time is waiting for the starter and dough to rise.

So with so few ingredients, where does the flavor come from when you bake bread? It comes from the proofing or fermentation

Here is the Italian bread recipe I’ve been making. It begins with a starter (a Biga, though I think the Biga for this recipe may be closer to a Poolish. What’s the difference? The ratio of water to flour. A Poolish has more liquid than a Biga. Simple, ‘eh?)
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here are some of the terms that brought people to my website. All things considered, I’m hoping most of these people left disappointed.

bourbon balls pregnancy
Not unless you’re the gingerbread man.

klishis.com bleh
Yeah, I know. One day it’ll get better.

something to make me mad?
Republicans. Next?

i’m understanding some things really make me mad
And you didn’t know this about yourself before?

random reasons to be mad at friend
Friendship; you’re doing it wrong.

women make me mad
I’m noting a theme here…

anti feminist folk tale
See: “The Brother’s Grimm”

jake.cisco fanfic
1) It’s Sisko. 2) Ew.

michelle is random
Yes.

klishis.com tentacles are not my thing they are shawns thing but no one ever sends him tentacles
That is very specific. And amusing.

irish fairy folk tales i’ve got a fairy on my
Your what?!

me and the pumpkin queen resoluion
What?

venite creature betlehem
No, really. WHAT?

Things not to do if you are clumsy:

Play with old, splintery broom handles
Walk down the stairs with your hands in your pockets
Wear platform shoes
Eat spaghetti while wearing white
Cross the street with your hands in your pockets
Juggle knives
Juggle fire
Wear open toed shoes
Run with scissors
Use a pocket knife that is not a lock blade

Some of these are things I’ve done, some are things I make a point not to do, since it’s very easy to imagine the consequences.

You?

Today? Today is a day of accomplishing things and of money soon coming in.

First, we got back the results of our health screening from last week. PEIA does a thing where they cut you a check for being healthy. Michael and I both scored 100 out of 100, so we’ll both be getting $50 checks! Woot!

As far as my results, they were overall worse than last year, but the higher blood pressure is directly related to increased stress at work and at home, and I’d bet the slightly increased cholesterol is related to the ever increasing does of antidepressants, as did the slight uptick in my BMI. (OK, the fact I had two brownies and ice cream the night before probably didn’t help.) But despite the upticks, I am still in excellent health–and hope that next year’s numbers go back to the range of last year’s.

The second thing was I filed our federal taxes. Got our W2s online, but I needed Michael to get me his student loan interest and the mortgage interest statements before I could file.

Amusing tidbit here. You need to enter the amount of interest you earn on any interest bearing accounts. However, I only had $0.06 interest on our local savings account, which rounded to zero, which the program didn’t like.

Since I again bought the HR Block software, I again had 5 free e-files, so taxes are gone, and hopefully our return will be winging it’s way back soon. (Why did I spend money on tax software? Because I also have to do Grandmom’s taxes, and I’d really rather not take any chances there.)

Now before someone pitches a snit about my liberal tendencies and taxes and such, Michael and I both overpay throughout the year–we both file as single. I’d much rather overpay through the year and get a big return than have to take a hit in April, so it works out well for us. I’m also sure there are lots and lots of things we could do to increase our return. But I don’t particularly care, so why bother with the headache?

So hooray for getting things done, and an even bigger cheer for the money that’ll be filtering in over the next couple months. Wheee!

So yay for Wednesday–better than Monday and Tuesday!

That means it’s not Monday, but otherwise, I’m not feeling the joy.

In the meantime, today’s word: Nathan

But just to be safe, I think I’ll remain in hiding.

Leave a dish of milk out for me if you think about it.

I am in denial about today being Monday.

Please carry on as if this were not Monday.