{ Winter Storm.....what?!?! }

 

Sunday, the weather started getting cold. Not the usual October in Texas cold, where it gets to the high 60s and 70s, but I mean cold as in 30 degrees. 

 

The rain started coming down, and I remember sitting back and thinking "Oh this is perfect Fall weather, rainy, dark, just perfect to stay in, watch movies and snuggle under a blanket." 

 

And then Monday morning rolled around, and the minute I stepped out of bed, I knew that it was not only cold but freezing cold. 

 

The temperature was 24, with a real feel of 18. WHAT?!?!?!? 

 

The weather warnings started coming in, but honestly I didn't think it would get that bad.  I know, I'm one of those who doesn't really believe the meteorologists and thinks they often get it wrong.

 

 It kept getting colder, the rain kept coming down, and then by Monday afternoon it had switched to freezing rain.

By Tuesday morning, we woke up to a winter wonderland.

Beautiful, but, wow, everything was iced over.  We have so many broken trees on our property, I guess the weight of the ice was too much for the branches.  We will be out there this weekend chopping wood for the fireplace.

 

One thing we weren't counting on was the damage to our veggie garden. I knew that we would eventually face frost, later in the year, and we had planned on winterizing the garden, covering the veggie beds and such, but this winter storm came out of nowhere. 

My tomato plants are now completely gone, and it's sad because I had so many tomatoes on there still. Curt went out yesterday afternoon and harvested all the tomatoes. Of course they're still green, but I wasn't about to let them go to waste. I made a Green Tomato Sauce this morning, in the pressure cooker. 

I got two pint jars out of it, one I will can later today or tomorrow, and the other I will use for dinner tonight, since I'm making pasta anyway. 

 

   

My husband's work got cancelled, and thankfully Jasmine wasn't working yesterday either, but I guess everything just shut down, including schools. 

The roads were really bad, so much so that even our driveway was impossible to drive in. 

 

   

I've been loving these days when my whole family is home. I know it can get a little crazy at times, but I really love having my whole family around. 

I lock the door, make yummy food, bake good stuff and we just relax all day long. 

 

 

So that is what happened yesterday. Did school with Nick, Jasmine did her own thing, Curt did his school work and I just pottered around the house, made some burgers for dinner and some Portuguese donuts, which are called Bollinhos de Chuva. 

 

If I had to translate exactly it would be Rain Cakes. But they're just Rainy Day Donuts. 

 

They are very easy to make, but boy are they delicious and very dangerous to have around. Guess that explains why we don't have many left. Hahah 

 

 

 I will have the recipe on the food blog today. 

 

By the way, I've been trying to keep the blog updated, I know I don't really get comments over there, but that's fine, I understand. If I'm not updating and keeping up with the recipes, it's normal that traffic will eventually disappear. So I'm trying, my life is so busy lately and nothing like it used to be a few years ago. 

 

 I think when Curt was still active duty and we were stationed in Arizona, things were easier, which is so strange if you think about it, because both kids were little and in school. Usually that means a busier life, and I kept thinking once they are older I'll have more time. Nope! 

 

Their needs just change, so in some ways I feel like I have less time now than I did back then, which also means all the time I had to blog and try new recipes, upload the and so forth, is just gone. Maybe one day I'll get back to it, but maybe not. Only God knows the future right? 

 

Anyway, Curt is off to work today, the ice is completely gone, we just have rain right now, and the temperatures have raised slightly. We are at 48 degrees, which is cold but not that bad. 

 

It is now almost 11:30 in the morning, so I'm going to make another cup of coffee and a cheese and ham sandwich for lunch.  Then back at the computer to reply to some emails, and work on the new menu plan for the next two weeks.

 

I got some new of home Fall recipe magazines, and there are tons of yummy meals in there I want to make.  I actually have a huge list that I wrote down when I first looked through the magazines.  

 

The rest of the day is just more homeschooling, oh and laundry, I'm busy with laundry as always.

 

I hope you all have a blessed Wednesday, stay safe and stay warm wherever you are.   

xoxoxoxo

Ice, grocery shopping and movies!

Woke up to such a huge mess out there.  The snow stopped last night, but we got some rain and it just froze everything.

Our street looked like an ice skating rink, so shiny and slippery.  I don't like driving when it is like this as my car is not very good for this kind of weather.  Rather, I should say, my tires are not very good for icy weather.

Everything is still white, we got a lot of snow, and according to the news beat the previous record for November which was back in 1935.  Goodness!
 

As much as I would have rather stayed inside where it was nice and warm, I had to go out.  I couldn't put off grocery shopping anymore.

I usually get my groceries at the base commissary but because the roads were so bad, we didn't want to chance it driving out there, so I told hubby we would just go to Walmart.  I didn't get everything I needed but got most of it, and then tomorrow morning when he has to go to the commissary for work, I will go along and get the rest.

Walmart is usually crazy on a good day, but this afternoon was impossible.  I don't know why there were so many people in there, the aisles were crowded, the checkout lines were long and at one point I started feeling quite claustrophobic.  That is when I told Curt that we  had to leave.  Thank goodness for that decision.

We came home and I set to work putting the groceries away, something I don't particularly like doing because it seems to take hours on end.

After I was done, I grabbed a cup of coffee and went outside to enjoy the sun which was just starting to set.....yes it was cold but it felt so good to be in the fresh air.

I didn't stay too long though, it was starting to get quite cold and even my coffee was losing it's heat fast and that is something I just couldn't let happen.  What good is a cold cup of coffee, huh?

I faffed around inside for a bit, tidied up the kitchen a little and got some dishes done all while trying to figure out what we were doing tonight. The hubby and kids decided on movie night, and since we haven't had one of those in a while, it sounded like fun.

A hot shower, my warm jammies, my crochet blanket, another cup of coffee and a slice of coconut cake later, and we settled in to watch a movie.  I had The Purge from Netflix and that was our first movie for the night.

If you enjoy Psychological Thrillers, then you'll enjoy this one.  It was pretty good.

The second movie is currently playing, I'm watching while typing this up.  We went with some fantasy, this one called The Curse of the Dragon Slayer.  It's pretty good so far and since my husband and kids love video games with orcs and dragons and knights etc, they're really enjoying this one.

I have to be honest, I do too.  I've always enjoyed movies along these lines, it's almost like Lord of the Rings and Hobbit.

Yep that is our night, warm and watching movies.

Oh and by the way, we managed to get the fire going....we used one of the logs wrapped in paper from Walmart.  One of you had suggested it, and I want to thank you because it really does work and we've been nice and toasty for the past few hours without having to turn on the air.  Yay!

Tomorrow I have housework to look forward to, some grocery shopping, mainly to buy my meats and what I need for Thanksgiving, laundry, ironing, need to wash my carpets and then at night we will be at my brother's for Walking Dead.  I still need to figure out what I'm taking over but I'll talk it out with my sister in law in the morning.

I better finish this up and go watch the rest of the movie.  Since it's still early, I will probably watch some vlogs before bed.

What have you been doing this Saturday?  Anything fun?