Summary Sunday - Let it Snow Edition

It's been another whirlwind week around here. It's also been a cold one. Apparently the polar vortex is making its comeback. Our temperatures have dropped back down below the freezing mark and it's been snowing pretty well. In fact, between Friday and this morning we've accumulated around 8 inches of the fluffy stuff in our yard.

I'm a fan of the snow, but not the driving in it or the shoveling of it. When it comes to the driving, I can handle myself, but there's always the idiot who thinks they can floor it to get over the ice and the panicked drivers who go 15 miles an hour on the freeway. It's those other drivers that make me just want to stay home and hole up.

And then there's the shoveling. We've been pretty lucky this year in that one of our neighbors owns a snow blower and always manages to take care of the whole neighborhood before any of us are up for the day. Unfortunately, he caught the edge of a sidewalk the other day and the paddles broke off. Poor guy. He actually apologized to me yesterday morning for not having our driveway shoveled. How nice was that? He's a great neighbor. But...Darian and I braved it ourselves while Collin was at work. Unfortunately, not very well.

With half a foot to shovel, I wimped out pretty quickly and so did he. We managed to get the sidewalks all done before we called it quits, but the driveway still remains awash with the fluff. It seemed like a losing battle anyway...within two hours of our retreat the snow had covered the walkways back up.

Today we saw the sun again. It's still a pretty snowy and icy wonderland out there, but some of it melted and we (thankfully) didn't accumulate any more. We'll see how long that lasts. The forecast calls for moisture of some form every day for the next week.

How about a wrap up of the last seven snowy days?

Posts I Posted : This week kicked off posts for February's theme of love. I told you the first two parts of our love story: how Collin & I met and our engagement story. This upcoming week I'll finish out the trilogy of posts with our wedding story, including some of our wedding photos. I also have some projects coming over the next couple of weeks. Yay!

Books I Read : I continue to be 2 books behind schedule. However, that will be down to 1 by the end of the evening, as I only have about 30 pages left in Insurgent by Veronica Roth.

Earlier this week, I finished Divergent, the first book in the series. And wow. I loved it. Dystopian fiction just speaks to me I suppose. I will be posting a full review of it later this year as it certainly made the cut for the 2014 BOTY bracket.

I had held off on watching the preview for the upcoming movie until I finished the book, but it looks quite good and (based on the small snippets they show) it looks like it might actually follow the book quite well. It's one of a few novel based movies that I'm looking forward to seeing this year.

Recipes I Tried : Yet another week of no new recipes. We seem to be on a streak of making large quantities that turn into leftovers for the remainder of the week. It also doesn't hurt that we've been doing birthdays and family meals quite a bit over the last few weeks, so I don't always have to be the one cooking dinner. It's been lovely. Darian helped Collin to make my mom's meatloaf for dinner this week. It's always yummy and it's pretty simple to make. It may be one of the first recipes that he'll be able to make fully on his own. I'm thinking of having him be the one to present it on the blog later in the year.

Projects I Worked On/Finished : There have been more coats of paint than originally planned on my Valentines' Day project...so it has been slow going. But it will be finished here in the next couple of days and make it's debut on the blog soon. Even though it has been a bit more challenging than I originally anticipated (still a fairly easy project, just more time consuming than planned), I am excited to have the finished product. It should turn out cute.

I also managed to salvage some leftover shelving from the office in order to help clean out my lab area. The shelving will be great to use for vinyl signs, but their discovery in the back seat of the truck this evening led Collin to label me a hoarder. Fine. I admit it. I am a hoarder of craft supplies.

Favorite Pin I Pinned : For the second week in a row, a dessert makes this week's top pick. This week's favorite pin is actually Darian's fault. I was just poking around at things when he looked over my shoulder and saw this one. I had to agree with him though...it looks delicious. We're going to have to try them some time. It's Cherry Filled Chocolate Sandwich Cookies from Mom on Timeout.

Sorry about the complete lack of photos on this post. I'm realizing that I need to start taking more pictures during the week. I've been horrible about photos for about the last year. That will have to change. The good news is that I'll make up for it in the next post. Coming up tomorrow...our wedding story!