Snow Day

Today we woke to snow falling heavily, but alas the kids had school. The snow fell all day and I was forced to head to the store for supplies (we were scraping the cupboards last night for dinner). I decided to 2-cart the store trip and really stocked up. 2 gallons of milk, 6 lbs of hamburger, a gallon of OJ, eggs, bacon and sausage. . . . I loaded up. Don't want to get caught without food in cold weather again.

Here's the result of our cookie decorating session last night. These are the ones that I saved for us. The prettiest ones are headed to Shawn and Kate in their care packages. Don't they look yummy? Every year while I'm in the midst of decorating and all the mess I tell myself "not next year", but seeing (and tasting) the end product always makes me recant.

Last night I got a couple of packages delivered by UPS. Both were from Harry & David; one sent by Patrick's Mom & Dad and the other from his brother Nick and his wife Carolyn. Lots of sweet treats and yummy pears inside. We really enjoy the pears so much.

Last but not least is another beautiful amaryllis that bloomed today. This is 'Lemon Star'. I can't decide if this or 'Amalfi' is my favorite so far this year. Actually they have all been wonderful, but I did look forward to this one opening. If my count is accurate this is my seventh amaryllis to bloom this year. I have a total of 23 so there's many more to come yet. I tried 4 of the 8 paperwhites, but they have petered out and the sprouts have died. I'm thinking it was lack of heat as I had them in the basement under the lights. My best bet I've found is to place the forced bulbs on a closed heat register in front of a brightly lit window. I'll try the last 4 after Christmas and hopefully have better luck.

Patrick called a couple of times today. His flight out of Chicago was delayed by an hour and so by the time they landed in Hong Kong they had missed the last ferry over to the mainland. He ended up having to take a ferry to Macao and his Chinese contacts met him there and drove them to Shenzen an hour and half away. He made it to the hotel about 1am local time. He called me back two hours later. . . .sleepless in China despite having taken an Ambien. It's the same story every trip you'd think he'd come to expect it. . . I do. I had expected to hear from him by this time this evening (his morning) so I'm guessing he finally got to sleep and the Ambien is ensuring he gets a full 8 hours of sleep which it's designed to do. I'm sure he'll call in an hour or so.