A Time For Everything

We ended up with two of them!

Snow is a fairly rare occurrence around these here parts--especially this much. But it was lovely to watch and enjoy while working from home. Technology has its plusses and the ability to work from home is definitely one of them.

Here are a few more pictures:

The water in the bird bath was frozen solid.

Rascal tracks in the snow. :0)

Snow on the driveway / ramp. (This was after the first wave of precip.)

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Image courtesy of Paramount+.

I binged this and it's fabulous. Stallone is great. If you have Paramount+ and you haven't seen it -- go watch it.

From Wikipedia: Stallone portrays Dwight "the General" Manfredi, an American Mafia caporegime who has been recently released from prison in New York and is sent to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he begins to set up a criminal organization.

What they left out is that he was in prison for twenty-five years for covering for the family he worked for and they sent him to Tulsa with nothing.

Can't wait for Season Three. :0)

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Image courtesy of Netflix.

I also watched this movie, and it, too, was awesome.

From Wikipedia: The film is based on the 2019 magazine article "Fighting a Two-Front War", by Kevin M. Hymel, on the contributions of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, an all-Black and all-female battalion, in World War II.

These women have to overcome all sorts of obstacles on top of the basic indignity of being dismissed because of the color of their skin.

The battalion commander, Major Charity Adams, receives orders to Europe from the Army, but doesn't get the commensurate orders from the War Department which will officially allow her to command her troops. She ends up writing her own.

And it snowballs from there. The battalion's original housing is supposedly bombed, so the commanding general picks new housing "especially for them." Which turns out to be a filthy, vermin-infested old boarding school. So before they can even start the mission they're there to complete, they have to clean the building / facilities to make them livable.

And on and on.

I highly recommend this as well.

https://www.historyextra.com/period/second-world-war/six-triple-eight-true-story-real-history/

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And that's all I have for you at the moment--this post is already a fortnight late. Yikes.

So...hope all is well with you.

Take care and catch you in a couple of weeks.

Texas does not get a lot of ice, snow, or below freezing temperatures as a general rule. We certainly don't get any one of those things or more than a day or two and rarely if ever piled on top of one another. But here we are...

Despite the layer cake of weather phenomena...we still have the birds and the squirrels.

Most creatures down here are acclimated to what we do get, but what was amazing to see was that critters like the birds and the squirrels must have the ability to withstand this kind of weather written in their DNA. They may not have to utilize those strands very often in their lifetime--but when they need them, they work. :0)

Our standard cadre of squirrels has shown up every day. Our usual number is six, but we've seen up to eight. They come and eat until mid-to-late afternoon and then off they go to burrow into their nests for the night. I can see several nests in the surrounding treetops.

The birds, too, have shown up. Even some species we don't normally see in our yard...the grackles.

Anyhow, we survived weather-pocalypse and, by this afternoon/evening, our temps will rise above freezing and remain there for the foreseeable future.

Have a great warmer weekend. Take care now.

...f*cking frightful. Pardon my "French."

The chance of snow came back with a vengeance--100%--and we have at least three / four inches on the ground.

Thank goodness I took my daughter's suggestion to grocery shop Saturday morning, (I usually go Sunday morning.) despite the hassle I went through. My Walmart was closed, so I had to go to a different one whose layout was somewhat similar, but not 100% the same, so I had to go up and down every aisle and backtrack a few times. But the roads were clear and the temps tolerable.

Because this is what I awoke to Sunday morning:

This was Sunday evening, just before sunset:

And this was this morning (Monday):

I know the whole nation is experiencing crazy weather. Some parts are more used to this. We are not.

Usually we get a dusting and it's warm enough that it melts within 24 hours and we're back to standard conditions.

Not this year, baby!

We've hunkered down and I'm working from home...if there's even work to do. I'm sure most of our clients' employees are stuck at home unless they're essential and I know they're not. So--good old fashioned snow day.

The problem is, we're not going to warm up for any of this to melt away by tomorrow. We stay below freezing through Thursday...with another round of snow expected (90% as of this writing) on Wednesday... 

Last year was one for the record books and it looks like this is year is starting off with a bang as well--

Hope you're warm and safe. Take care and have a good week. Catch you Wednesday...

This week we tried taco chaffles and a pumpkin chaffle cake...

TACO

It tasted fine, but it wasn't a taco. It was a meat and cheese batter and it tasted like one.

PUMPKIN

My conclusions after only a few recipe attempts...

I think I'm going to much prefer a regular old cheeseburger, hold the bun, to a chaffle version.

I'm going to much prefer a taco salad over a taco chaffle for maximum taco flavor and feel.

If I need the crunch of a taco shell, I'll have to earn a visit to Taco Casa somehow.

I'd rather have a pizza with a cauliflower crust than a pizza flavored chaffle.

But!

Where I think this chaffle idea can come in handy for me is for sweet things. I've always had a sweet tooth. These days I lean more toward baked goods than candy as long as you don't wave black licorice in front of me. Or gummy bears. Or Peanut M&M's. Or-- Well, you get the idea.

The pumpkin chaffles could be good with a little more experimenting. Also, I forgot to put the pumpkin pie seasoning in the batter, so it ended up in the frosting instead.

I think eating them one at a time while warm with the frosting melting into the waffle squares would be better than waiting until all layers have cooled. They don't taste quite as good cold.

I definitely need to make sure I have powdered sugar substitute for the frosting. My batch came out a bit gritty. Tasty, but gritty. I tried to powderize the granulated sweetener, it didn't work as well as I'd hoped, so gritty frosting.

I'm also going to try a little less batter and cooking a bit longer so they don't feel quite as gummy maybe?

Next batch is going to be chicken bacon ranch and/or buffalo chicken.

This years goals will be up Wednesday.

Hope you had a great weekend. We had snowfall but no accumulation at least not at our house. Other areas of the Metroplex had accumulation. I was jealous.

Catch you Wednesday.