7 Quick Takes: Where Winter Is Coming

I am late with these!! Egads. I must have been snowblind or something….or I just didn’t have them all figured out before I left for the office. You choose.

Blather that just might take your mind off the Lake Effect Snow Warning.

1.
I seem to have purchased my new boots just in time.

I don’t like to replace something until I absolutely have to….and it was time to get a new pair of boots. The boots that I would pull on for “every day” use were a pair of faux Ugg type things that I bought on a whim at Target 10 years ago or so. They were OK except that they didn’t always keep my feet the warmest. The soles of my feet would be cold, and we all know that I hate to have cold feet. I knit and wear wool socks to prevent that very thing from happening.

Then about two years ago they started to leak a bit. Not a lot at first, just a trickle when I would have been tromping through lots of puddles in parking lots etc. I didn’t notice it right at first and then last year I really did. Come to find out, after looking at the soles, that they were cracked.

That will do it. But by the time I figured that out it was late in the season and there really weren’t any boots that I liked at a price that I liked. So I just dealt with it.

And this year I almost forgot about the leakiness…and then I walked past a Famous Footwear and the thought occurred to me that I might go in and look at boots and…..I walked out with a pair at a reasonable price. They look sort of like Uggs. They have nice tall legs on them. And I tested them out this morning and they are nice a warm.

Win!

2.
I was able to test out my boots this morning because of this……

The snow was not a surprise, it was snowing last night when we went to bed. But it is still a rude shock, on that first morning of snow, when you get up and realize that you have to put on boots and hat and coat and mittens just to walk the dog.

The snow will continue throughout the day I would guess as we have a Lake Effect snow advisory in effect until evening. Even when I moved out of the snow belt I didn’t more out of the snow belt.

Winter is coming.

3.
I am off to the office today, which will mean that I will be completely confused all day. I don’t generally work in the office on Fridays. But I was out doing the photographer thing yesterday, at a long planned corporate head shot session, and so my usually in the office Thursday did not happen.

So it is to the office I go today.

I am going to be so confused.

4.
Yesterday I had the pleasure of taking head shots for Cleveland Bridge Builders. I am sure I will tell you about that later, although it was pretty straight forward.

I should backtrack to say that HHBL and I have this “thing” that happens to us ALL. THE. TIME. We have people, people that we do not know usually, tell us their entire life stories out of the blue. You say hello, how are you and it is off to the races. We think it is because we are good listeners. I don’t know. But I had it happen to me again yesterday.

I was done with the photo shoot and was about to start the tear down process when I turned around and noticed a fellow at the door, just looking in. He wasn’t a part of CBB. I should say that the photo shoot was at Vocational Guidance Services in Cleveland. This fellow, Sal, brightly and jokingly asked if it was time to take his picture. I would have done it in a heart beat if he had really wanted that, you know I would have. But what he really wanted to do, I think, was just to chat a bit. And in the space of about a minute he was telling me his life story and all that had happened to him that brought him now to VGS for some training.

I think this happens because the Lord knows that I like to tell other people’s stories.

And I do love to tell other people’s stories through pictures that is for darn sure.

5.
On another snowy note. The first snow filled commute of the Frozen Northeast Ohio winter season is always a joy.

Did you note the sarcasm?

It isn’t that we don’t know how to drive in snow, it is just that we forget year after year what it is like. Sort of like labor, only you don’t get a cute, sweet smelling baby at the end of the process. What you do get, if you forget what it is like to drive in snow, is what we had all over the area today……

Lots of accidents, and closed highways, and major traffic jams.

Ah Winter how I love you.

Not.

6.
I feel like I am in a rut with cooking at the moment. It may be because there are days during the week when I really don’t have to cook. This week either HHBL or I have been gone at dinner time Mon – Thursday! Tonight is the first meal that we will sit down together to eat since Sunday. It isn’t always like that and there are days when I cook even if he isn’t home, I do have to eat you know. But I feel like I have been cooking the same old thing.

SO….

As I noodle around the internetz I am trying to remember to put promising recipes into Pepperplate. Have you ever heard of Pepperplate? If you haven’t you need to go over the right away. I have the app on my iPadfoot and it makes it so easy to add recipes as I find them on the internet via the computer and then have all the ingredients and directions right there on the iPadfoot when I am cooking. Shoe Queen told me about it and it is fabulous.

Now to figure out what I am going to cook on Sunday. Hmmmmmmmm.

7.
Instagram. Because we need something warm and cheerful on this snowy day.