Since my attempt to be unproductive for a day over Thanksgiving break proved to be unsuccessful, I decided that I might have been setting my sights too high. A whole day? That's not exactly realistic. So, I decided to try for a smaller period of time. Friday night it began to snow. A lot. I think we're at fourteen or fifteen inches now. Before the snow hit my parents went to a Christmas party so I decided to take advantage of having the house to myself and I hooked my iPod up to the speakers upstairs, put Harry Connick Jr. on play, poured a glass of wine and sat. And I was able to make myself last an entire song. That's wrong, an entire song of doing nothing else but sitting and drinking a glass of wine. I'm also serious when I said I was able to make myself. Before the first song was over I started to stand up thinking, I need to do this, this and this, before realizing that the first song hadn't even finished. As soon as it was over, I jumped off the chair and ran around getting some things done.
One of those things was cooking. I turned this:
into these:
and these:
into these:
I got the idea from Kitchenist to shred brussels sprouts and stir them into a cream-based sauce, to serve with pasta. I decided to add some peppers to the mix as well since I had only eaten one other vegetable that day. While it isn't the best pasta dish I ever made, it was tasty and it's a quick, easy recipe for those busy days.
We had snow all day and our snow storm was quickly labeled a blizzard. I woke up this morning and pulled a loaf of bread from the cupboard to find that there was a slice left. Since we weren't planning to leave the house today, my mom decided to take advantage of the opportunity and bake a few loaves. I love homemade bread! I usually don't eat jam (lots of sugar and healthier ways to get the nutrients) but I decided that a freshly baked loaf of bread on a snowy day called for a spoonful of jam.
Towards the end of the snowfall I began taking pictures. This is the window in my (basement-level) room:
The little black dots by the street are mailboxes. You can also see the reflection of lights on the Christmas tree.
There are steps buried beneath the snow.
I've been watching Anthony Bourdain while working on my flashcards for geography. So far we've traveled to Shanghai, Malaysia, Sicily, Argentina, Uruguay, Romania, New Zealand and Washington DC. I should get back to that. Up next, Chicago. Let's see if he visits Billy Goats!
Winter has hit the Midwest! It arrived fast, with a huge snowstorm on Friday. The snow was waterlogged and heavy. On Saturday, it took out power for many people in the Cities, including me. I didn't get it back until Monday.
This was my first view of the snow outside when I walked upstairs Saturday morning.
I thought it would be fun to write with by candlelight with a glass of wine. It got old after a poem and a half.
By Monday we were tired of living without electricity. We were one of three houses on the block that didn't have electricity so our neighbors connected power cords and brought them to our house so that we could live like cavemen. We were able to set up a crock pot and a coffee pot to heat water so that we could make tea.
Our hibiscus survived the cold!
By the time I got home from swimming on Monday, the electricity was back on! I wondered why it was so much harder to live without electricity here than it was whenever the power went out in Senegal. I came to a few conclusions. 1) In Senegal, appliances (like the stove) use gas so you can still cook. 2) Power outages take place frequently so some places have generators. 3) It's not freezing cold. (Of course, it's really hot and without electricity you can't use a fan for relief.)
This experience has reminded me of how thankful I am for electricity!
It's been awhile since I've blogged but that was done on purpose, I just never explained it here. I decided to take a little hiatus from the blogging world so that I could focus attention on my own personal writing. I had to write a 20 page book of poetry for my senior seminar (my draft was critiqued last night and it went well!), I wrote a book in October and I'm participating in NaNoWriMo right now.
But next week I have off of work and school so you can expect to see me around at that time. I have a few things I'd like to share about books, movies, a talk that I attended by Nicole Krauss (author of The History of Love) and why I predicted the top three couples on Dancing With the Stars.
