Tired of Snow? Where should it go?

Snowed in again. And the week ahead doesn't look good.

Last weekend, we were off Friday and Monday for a planned holiday. Then it snowed and activities were canceled. Three of us were at Lafayette for Carly's official visit there, along with the other field hockey players and parents. That's deserving of its own blog post, but the snow owns this one.

Katie stayed home sick on Tuesday, and then we had a snow day on Wednesday. Whoohoo. A full day of school for both on Thursday, before school was canceled for Friday. And now Monday. And who knows for how much longer.

What have I/we accomplished? Together we've shoveled a lot of snow. We've made home cooked meals. Baked risotto, baked ziti with sausage (using Villa Cappelli Sun Dried Tomato Ketchup), and an experimental dish with pasta, ricotta, spinach, walnuts, and red pepper sauce (employing Merlano Red Pesto). (It needed goat cheese). We've made two loaves of No Knead Bread (see prior blog post), and one loaf of Irish Soda Bread. I've sampled Olio2go's Vincotto Fig Vinegar (now I know why people buy it by the case), and experimented with a lemon extra virgin olive oil. I've eaten spoonfuls of Livio Pesle Balsamic Vinegar Jelly, accompanied by cheese. We've gone through 5 boxes of Kleenex, and although we have "light", we are running out of lightbulbs. We will run out of laundry detergent before we run out of food. Our best accomplishment was a total cleanout of Carly's room. Sadly, we had to miss out on the Navy-Bucknell basketball game and Bucknell alumni event.

We have worked on our trip planning for our late June jaunt to Rome. I think we've found an apartment to rent. Six nights. Piazza Navona. Be there.

My favorite make-fun-of-the-news story was of the woman in Alexandria who threw out the food spoiling in her refrigerator after the loss of power. Sticking it all in a snowbank didn't occur to her. Duh.

According to the news today, VDOT was hoping to get the interstates plowed by nightfall. I wonder if they were successful? Our street looks amazingly good -- but that's because our Homeowners' Association has paid $1800. Our roads (for ~50 houses) are maintained by the Commonwealth of Virginia. They say we should have our first pass through by Wednesday evening. Uh-oh. There's another storm coming Tuesday, into Wednesday.

This has been a phenomenal amount of snow for a region not known for its snowplows. We're entertaining bets on when schools will again be open for a full day. See Facebook for more fun on this topic.

College Confidential, Facebook, Twitter, and various biographical Google searches have been conducted. Emails have been exchanged with old friends. UPS and FedEx have not provided service updates for the DC area. That's what I need to determine my work day tomorrow.

Current reading: The Last Amateurs, by John Feinstein about Patriot League Basketball.

"Blizzard 2009": The View in Virginia

As the snow began to settle on Sunday, Tom took this picture of Katie. The snow in the cherry tree gives a hint of the amount of snow that fell. This side of the house gets a lot of sun, so the snow was already compacting.

While this was one heck of a snowstorm, the word "blizzard" seems a bit over the top. We had very little real wind, and few drifts.

On the night before the storm, the roads were crowded as masses made their way to grocery stores and gas stations. Parking lots were so crowded that cars waited in lines in the street, just to enter the parking lots.

We're usually fairly well stocked at home, and we managed to host neighbors, Rod and Deborah, for bean soup on the first night of the storm, and we had an early Christmas with Carl, Susan, and Andrew on Sunday. They just needed a little push up the hill (due to ice) on their way home. The weather for Christmas Day is a bit suspect: a wintry mix is expected for Friday morning.

While the stores may have missed our last trip to the mall, a quick inventory indicated we really did have enough gifts for the girls and each other. We completed our Christmas letters and mailed them on Monday. We ran the dryer over and over, with snow clothes cycling in and out. We made the pasta dough for our holiday traditions (more on that in another post), and had a grand time at home.

The Valentine's Day Snow Day

Two Wednesdays in a row! It's almost like being a kid in Upstate/Central NY. That said, I wouldn't mind being up there for the historic snowfall, reminiscent of the Blizzard of '66 and the snow of 1993. It's getting there that's the problem. For the fun of it, I keep checking the Syracuse.com website, and occassionally, even the forum for Cortland County.

Guess who turned 15 since the last update? Carly! She's off to a good start on her 3rd quarter grades, which is a good thing. We're looking forward to lacrosse tryouts, eventhough she broke a piece of Hardiplank siding last weekend with her lacrosse skills. She's signed up for a field hockey camp at William and Mary this summer.

We had a few friends over for dinner last Saturday night, and once again, we included an Olive Oil Tasting--all extra virgin from Olio2go, of course. The tasting table featured: Gourmet Sardinia Fruttato, Titone DOP, Vittorio Cassini Classico, Olio Beato, and Santisi Novello 2006. Our guests could appreciate the freshness of Santisi, the smoothness of Cassini, and the intensity of Fruttato. Titone was the overall favorite, and I used that for the field greens salad--along with splashes of white balsamic vinegar and red wine vinegar--one clove of garlic.

Our appetizers included a selection of olives (thanks to Wegman's olive bar), marinated mozarella balls (my own creation), peppery cheeses, bread and crackers.

The salad was served as a separate course along with bread from Wegman's and one of their gourmet/European/restaurant butters.

The main course was Tom's specialty --an unnamed pasta dish with chicken, red and yellow bell peppers, and mushrooms in a reduced red pepper cream sauce. Yum.

For dessert, we had another tasting, although unintended it turned out to be fun. I had two chocolate desserts from Trader Joe's the Chocolate Ganache and the Chocolate Decadence. It turned out that everyone wanted a small slice of each, for comparison tasting! I'm not sure we had a clear winner, as both were devoured.

In the world of olive oil, we've had a challenging learning experience in the process of importing. It's been a long journey and the arrival of San Macario Novello continues to be ....imminent. We've had a very helpful customs agent, been held up by Homeland Security, and continue to wait. It left the port in La Spezia, Italy on January 9th. Our pallet arrived at the port of NY on January 25 (I think), and there's been a long wait for release due to the extra inspections. We'll never know what in the container caused the VACIS exam or the complete unpacking of the container.

I hope to spend part of this snow day working on the Constant Contact announcement for the arrival of San Macario, and also working on pages for Olio2go's new web site. Launching soon!

There hasn't been much time for knitting lately, although I finished a scarf on Tuesday morning and wore it the same day. I bought the yarn when Maureen and I journeyed to Uniquities in Vienna on December 30.

Send me an email if you want to know about H e a d L i c e , attitudes about lice, facts about lice, and how to use olive oil to treat lice. Good readings: the Harvard School of Public Health guidance, the American Academy of Pediatrics position, and Virginia School Health Guidelines. It's always helpful to know your own school district's policy. I hope I don't have to speak with any of you on this topic again!

The books: I keep scaning the travel books and am ready for a return to Italy. I'm also continuing to read the Donna Leon mysteries set in Venice. The current book on my nightstand is Death at La Fenice. Before that, I finished Dressed for Death.

It's a good day to bake bread.....and read!

Happy Snow! Happy Valentine's Day... L.