Art by C: The Mr. and Me

The Way to Make Lunch on a Snow Day

Bed head and hot dogs over the fire.

More Snow

Snow. Better get used to it. It's sure to be the main topic around here. Especially since we are trapped together again tomorrow. The first double snow day in the history of the school district. We don't have an alley garage, but most people seriously can't get out. A pick-up truck tried to be the superhero of the neighborhood today and work it's way through the alley. Nice idea, but it ended up hitting our car. It wasn't enough to worry about since we drive a vehicle that 9 years old and has 100,000 miles. Still. Can I tell you a secret? I had a blast today. We had a great time cooped up together. There were hardly any arguments. Everyone seemed pretty happy. The boys spent most of the day building snow tunnels and sledding. H, Storm and I took a walk. And most of all, while it definitely is a pain, I kind like throwing off our schedules once in awhile.

The Snow Storm of 2011

This, is what our street looked like from our window last night around 7pm. The kid's school was already canceled. The fifth snow day ever in our town. Since 1873, the only other school closings due to snow were in 1930, 1939, 1967 and 1979 (per the Chicago Tribune). Work advised us to bring everything home and stay put (our office did end up closing for today -- but I still need to get stuff done, unfortunately). We knew the snow would be bad. Still, I'm pretty skeptical of overdramatized weather reports and wondered if it really would be as terrible as they predicted. It was no joke. While we bundled up on the couch, eating popcorn and watching a movie with the kids, the trees started swaying like crazy, the snow started falling harder, and there was lightening and thunder. Not sure that's something I've ever seen in my life before. After a good night of sleep, this is what we woke up to.


Snow covering our screened-in porch (and, of course some repairs that need to be made). A huge snow drift blocking us in our back yard. C tried to dig his way out.


A garage that we couldn't get to without shoveling around the door.


About two feet of snow in most places. It took Brian over two hours to snow blow, while I dedicated my efforts to the screened-in porch and front stairs.


A buried car.


The boys had a blast sledding down the drifts in the back yard. Who knows if they will see snow like this for awhile!


And they weren't the only ones having fun. Storm's thing was digging his nose into the snow then snorting really hard so it flew everywhere.

As for me, I'm not sure I'm getting out of these long underwear. After all, we'll be heading out there again for more plowing, shoveling and snow fun. I have to say though, even the presentation I need to work on seems so much better in front of a fire with my family around and my feet up. Stay safe, and have fun.

Snow Cream and a Blog Link

The weather is downright nasty in the Midwest right now. They are anticipating the worst storm since 1967. Brian ended up staying home a couple days this week -- I'm so excited and glad he did that. And I'm adjusting my work from home schedule as well. Thank goodness, because the boys school was just canceled. For the first time since the 1970s! It just doesn't get called off in these neck of the woods. To celebrate, we decided to make a big bowl of snow cream. Living near a big city, I'm a pretty big proponent of not eating snow. But we couldn't help ourselves. We even added a bunch of blue food coloring. And sprinkles. Why not? The boys were beside themselves.

Something else pretty great happened today! Our little ole' house was picked up on Desire to Inspire -- one of my favorite blogs. Not all the comments have been positive, but no one's been really mean. I knew that would happen. If I was smarter about it, I would have given a bit of history about the house and background on why we designed it the way we did. First of all, we really thought we'd be living here for longer, so it was designed to suit our family, and no one else. There were a couple critiques about us over-designing it and being insensitive to the period. Here's the thing -- I would absolutely agree. Except for the fact that someone went in and completely ruined it with a rehab in the 60s and 70s. Had there been some original details left, we would have incorporated them. But there was nothing original left. Frankly, I'm not one for "trying" to make something look original when it's not. But that's just a personal preference. Most of all, I hope people know aren't professionals, and we didn't use designers -- it was just us, which is what I love most about it. Anyhow, it was really exciting and nice of Kim to feature our blog, Thank you to everyone for your support and feedback.

Yummy Lunch

Almonds - Melon - Manchego - Serrano Ham

Shared with the Mr.

Masako Miki

Mixed media artwork by Masako Miki (via The Jealous Curator).

Before We Came Back Home

Hot chocolate at The Lumber Inn.



My travel companion. He wasn't much of a conversationalist, but nice to ride back home with.

Meetings and Music

It was a busy day and busy evening. We dropped the boys off with their cousins, and Christie, Tim, Brian and I went into Milwaukee. We had a really nice dinner at Mimma's. Then Brian and I had to go to his Winter Holiday Soiree. It was in the Rouge Room at the Pfister Hotel, which is a really beautiful space. The dark photo doesn't do it any justice. We couldn't stay long, but I met a lot of the people he works with and we got to listen a bit to The Vitrolum Republic, who were playing at the event. Their music is described as "Gypsy Noir." Pretty cool.



After a bit, we went to Turner Hall where we met up with Tim and Christie, and a bunch of our friends, for the 2nd Pablove Benefit Concert. It was great seeing Jeff and meeting his really great wife, Joanne. We missed most of the earlier bands, but definitely enjoyed every bit of Fitz and the Tantrums and Brian and Nikki of Silversun Pickups unplugged. It's a fairly intimate venue, and it was awesome. A great evening, benefiting a great cause.

Ray's MTB -- Milwaukee!

Today was the opening event for Ray's Mountain Bike Park ... in Milwaukee! Our friend Eric runs it. And Ray was there too. Brian got some rides in, some pros who Brian knows from his last company were there for the event. The place was packed. Fun afternoon.

Fish Fry with the Cousins

Dinner at the 5 O'Clock Club.

Amazing!

It was a crazy week. I like this. I'm sure it's true. (via Black*Eiffel)

Inspiration Files :: Stable Acre House

Going through my inspiration files. Stable Acre House, Norfolk. By David Kohn Architects. (via seesaw, via Wallpaper).

Ninja's by C

This might look like a person, but it's really a bunch of ninja's standing on top of each other to make a pyramid. That's what C says.