Snow Weekend

We've had a pretty amazing snow weekend.

We got about 4 inches of snow here, topped by a layer of sleet/ice. It wasn't the most fun stuff to play in, so we spent the weekend:

- Making snow cream
- Doing our taxes (Lee)
- Making soup and homemade pizza
- Watching the Miss America pageant and all 3 hours of Titanic (me)
- Spoiling Sugar by letting her stay inside ALL weekend
- Venturing out to Walmart for more supplies
- Drinking the most delicious hot cocoa while watching the Grammys
- Creating a new blog design (still a bit in the works, but yay for bigger pictures!)
- Did I mention cooking, eating and doing dishes - times 6?

Patio/backyard, with snow cream bowls filled to the brim:






Wal-mart parking lot, eerily full of seagulls. If you know me and my aversion to birds, you know I was NOT crazy about this situation:


All in all it's been a great weekend, just what I needed after a pretty stressful month at work. And we'll both be going in a few hours late tomorrow due to still slick roads, so we get to prolong the laziness just a little longer ;-)

Frozen Ponds and Salty Ribs

Lee finished up his smoker last weekend and was itching to try it out.

We had plans with Chrissy and Mike to take the dogs for a hike on Saturday (they have a new German Shepherd puppy), so we invited them over for ribs afterward. Lee spent Saturday morning deciding on the perfect rub and sauce recipes and prepping the ribs.

We had already postponed the hike once because it was SO cold. Last weekend wasn't looking any better but we decided to brave it anyway. We went to Harris Lake park and once we got moving we warmed up and it was fine.

The last time Lee and I hiked at Harris it was the hottest day of the year, so now we've been on the hottest and coldest days of the year. Both were still enjoyable, so now there's no excuses for any of the days in between.

It was actually kind of cool to see all of the ponds and puddles frozen over. Sugar had fun ice skating:

After two hours of hiking we were definitely ready for a good meal.

Sadly, it wasn't meant to be.

It sure looked pretty while it was on the smoker:

But the ribs were CRAZY salty. Total FAIL. Way less salt in the rub next time. By the time they got done though we were too drunk to care that the meal sucked.

Sugar and Ali had a blast playing together. It's impossible to get a shot of them that doesn't look like this:

Unless there are treats involved:

We all pooped out early. After Ali went to bed, Chrissy and Mike cheated on her with Sugar:

We can't wait to do it again...mostly so Lee can redeem himself with a decent meal.

Piddling and Tinkering

Lee came out of the woods behind our house one day with this:

"I found this in the woods. I'm going to make a grill out of it."

"That's stupid. You already have a $600 grill sitting on the patio."

"Well it's going to be a smoker, not a regular grill."

I rolled my eyes and said "Whatever lady." This is what Lee says to me when I'm trying to tell him something -- it means 'stop telling me what to do. I'm going to end up going along with what you said but first I want to be difficult about it.' So I've started using it back on him. It means 'that's a stupid idea but whatever.'

So he piddled and tinkered in the garage for two weeks and it was great because he was out of my hair and I could watch Ellen in peace without him griping.

Of course there were parts that had to be bought but they were pretty minor -- hinges, handles, grill grates. He bought a Dremel to do some of the cutting and had burnt the motor up within 10 minutes. Lowe's kindly replaced it though.

In the end, he came out with this:

I was pretty impressed, but would never admit it. All he got from me was a Whatever Lady.

Tune in tomorrow to hear about how the first meal on the smoker turned out.

Resolutions

The new year has been here for 13 days now, so it’s high time I share our resolutions with you.

They shouldn’t come as a big surprise though, as these are the resolutions I make every year: to get in shape both physically and fiscally. Or, as someone put it much more eloquently:

2010 = skinny jeans, fat wallet

We're doing pretty good so far on eating better and exercising more. And this weekend we're sitting down to go over our finance goals for the year and how to make them happen.

I’ll be checking in periodically to let you know how we’re doing.

P.S. - I'm also determined to get a new blog design up soon. I was hoping to replace the Christmas design with it but I'm not done yet (ok, I haven't even really started), so you'll have to deal with "Sundress" a little longer.