April Showers Bring...long winters

The view from our front door today at noon

Again, why is our world white?  What does Mother Nature have against color this year?!? I can't figure it out.  I wore carpi's and sandals this week and enjoyed having the windows open, and the weekend shows up in an ugly way! 

Thanks, Mother Nature.  They even postponed by little sis' Senior Prom until tomorrow.  I guess they will remember this prom since it will be held on a Sunday afternoon! 

I will take the snow and frost like it was on the day I took the following picture!  This 50 mph wind is a tad bit ridiculous!  And people wonder why I drink...tired of this nasty weather.

Enough with the rants about the weather.  There is more to life then worrying about what the temperature and wind speed will be. 

Cooped up in the house means it will be clean for the next 2 days.  Only thing I have left is to scrub floors.  Then what?

Hubby's cousin is getting married today, but there is a no travel advised on the interstate.  We hope the weather clears so we can at least get to the social, supper, and dance tonight.

Enjoy the weekend! Think happy thoughts and lots of colors!

{Half} Snow Day!

I got to enjoy half of my day at home yesterday.  North Dakota weather can't make up its mind and we ended up with blizzard like conditions.  Leaving work at noon was probably the worst idea we had.  It cleared up around 2:30 and I would have felt more comfortable driving home then.  To give you an idea of how bad it was to drive, try driving into the sun with your eyes crossed while you are not sure if you are on the road or driving in the ditch. Lots of fun! Okay, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been, but it would have been nice to be able to at least see the road!   Old Man Winter, what was wrong with the green grass that was noticeable 2 days ago!?  And if you failed to look at the calendar, I will fill you in...Spring Begins - March 20, 2011...remember?

Life was ok once I finished my 20 minute trek that usually takes 7 minutes.  I spent some time on the couch, in the kitchen, and in the garage.  My brother-in-law and 2 of our good friends stopped by on their snow day journey around the country side.  We may have had a snowball fight in the garage while enjoying some "cocktails."  Life was good!

And then today!...My manager called to inform me that the plows had gone through this morning and I could start my way to work.  Come to find out once I hit the highway that someone doesn't know what a plow is!...they hadn't showed their faces yet.  It was just as bad as the way home except that the wind wasn't blowing 40 mph and obstructing my view with snow.  I was only partially stuck twice, and I finally made it to my cozy chair at the office.  Now I just pray for Spring, and man am I going to pray! White is NOT my favorite color and I would like to see my back deck before April!

The park across the street

Neighbors car buried, and you can't tell but the snow is up to the deck on all sides!

Have a great, warm, colorful day! :) I think I might dye the snow green when I get home to cheer myself up!

Apple Crumble Sqaures

This weekend, I decided to use up a small amount of our massive amount of apples.  I'm getting tired of eating apples.  I searched for a new and easy recipe to use up some of the apples and decided Apple Crumble Squares looked the best.  Very simple to make and minimal clean-up (unless you are like me and completely miss the garbage when peeling the apples).  I made a few adjustments to the recipe, so I will share mine and here is the link to the original.

Crust and Topping:

3 cups flour

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup granulated sugar

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/4 teaspoons salt

1 cup (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

1 whole egg

Apple Mixture:
1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 teaspoons cornstarch

4 whole medium apples, peeled, cored, and grated

Prep Instructions:

Preheat over at 375.  Grease a 9x13 pan.

In a medium bowl, mix the flour, brown sugar, granulated sugar, cinnamon, and salt.  Work in the butter and egg with a pastry blender (which I don't own, so I used my hands) until pea-sized clumps form and virtually no loose flour remains.  Press half of the mix evenly into the pan.

For the apple mix, in another bowl, stir together the granulated sugar and cornstarch.  Squeeze out any excess liquid from the grated apples with your hands, then mix them into the sugar until thoroughly combined.  Sprinkle the apple mix evenly over the crust.  Crumble the remaining dough over the top of the apples. Bake for 30 minutes or until the top is slightly golden.  Cool completely before cutting into squares.

For my variations: 

 I did not have unsalted butter, so I used salted and added only a dash of salt. 

I used 4 gala apples and 1 golden delicious apple.  Seemed liked 4 was not enough. 

I sprinkled extra cinnamon over the apple mix when it was on the crust.  We like the more flavor.

You could also use more brown sugar and less granulated for the sweeter flavor. 

Sweetness will, of course, depend on the type of apples used.

Our neighbor came over for some computer help and hubby fed him some of these.  We filled the bottom of a cereal bowl with the squares and topped with ice cream.  Now my thought would be to warm the square and THEN top with ice cream.  Instead, hubby warmed it all together for 30+ seconds and we all enjoyed warm apple squares with ice cream soup!  Anyway, these bars were somewhat intended to make the journey to work with me for an office treat, but we inhaled half the pan.  Good think we have plenty of apples so I can make it again soon! 

On another note:  We received another good 8 inches of snow in our neck of the woods.  I will continue to complain about the snow and cold until Old Man Winter decides to make it worth it and give me a snow day off work! Or until it's Spring (which is just a few days away...right!?)! We finally got all bundled up to push and shovel snow away from the house around 2:00pm.  We were lazy after a big breakfast of sausage, eggs, and toast.  Anyway, we braved the cold and wind to clear our paths for the morning trek to work.  I spent a good part of the day cleaning out our "filing" system and reorganizing it into a brand new file cabinet that hubby brought me.  We can now find the receipts I thought I threw away months ago! 


This was taken a few weeks before, but I swear it looked exactly the same






Winter blues...

Today, in this part of good ol' North Dakota, the temperature is a freezing (for a lack of a...different word) -20 degrees.  But don't forget that with the wind chill, it feels like -40.  Oh, how I love negative temps!  Along with all the cold temps, we have a million feet of snow on the ground...or so it seems.

This picture was actually taken last year, before the world of a heated garage was introduced to me. I am fairly certain that we have more snow now then we had when this picture was taken.  But, either way, you get the point...we have SNOW.  And I will sell it to you for cheap! (I will post this years pictures at a later time, but right now I don't want to look at them!)

And I know that I shouldn't complain about the weather and the snow and the freezing cold temps because I choose to live here, but that's what I'm good at.  I will continue to complain about this snow until it goes away forever...so that most likely means I will complain, forever! I wish I could say that I am used to it, but I'm not.

I don't think I would dislike winter so much if I had something to do.  But my indoor hobbies are limited to watching TV,  playing online (which you can only do for so long before you are bored again), and putting puzzles together.  I have ONE outdoor hobby, and that is shovling snow off the deck and sidewalk, which takes like 5 minutes (or as long as I can feel my fingers and face).

This is my 7 layers of clothing last year when we were trying to dig ourselves out.  NOT a happy camper!

But please, if you can bring Spring a little faster, I would pay you a billion dollars! Seriously!  I don't like being cooped up in the house.  And I forgot to mention that my husband is starting to drive me nuts.  Remember that saying, Absence makes the heart grow fonder...well I wish hubby had something to do outside because he is taking up my "me" time! Love you, hubby :)

As for now, I am going to go back to starring out the window, wishing for days filled with sunshine, planting and watering my garden, drinks, and watching my boyfrie...I mean Joe Mauer and my beloved Twins. 

:)

Have a WARM day!