Winter Nights

Thursday morning I got up and around to head off to class for the morning. As soon as I got to my car, I realized the ice had already encased one side. Negative. Then, the battle played out in my mind like this:

1. I wait for my car to de-ice, hop in, drive on the soon-to-be-very-slick roads, get to class, go to one class for the day, turn around as the ice hits and when school is closed, possibly get in a wreck...

OR

2. Call-in, cuddle up in my pajamas, fix a warm breakfast, watch the ice and snow from a comfy/cozy/warm home, and enjoy a few extra hours without the risk of life-threatening roads.

Yep...no brainer.

So, I curled back into bed and waited until my mental alarm clock told me to get up.

Then, Mr. Alwaysthinkingofme decided to drive to our local convenience store to pick up what was left of the bundles of firewood in case the electricity went out and left me without heat. While we were there, we grabbed a movie to prepare for my boring night and headed back to the house.

Mr. Ihavetogotoworktomakealiving decided to brave the roads and started his pickup. After an hour of scraping snow and ice he headed off to work. I decided to walk over to the neighbor's house. A few minutes into the nail-painting of a five and seven year old, the phone rang. Mr. I'mheadedhomebecausemymeaniebossdidn'tcallandletmeknowthatworkwasclosedtoday had successfully made it to the parking lot (an hour later) and realized the entire plant had shut down. He, being the youngest at this job, was the only one to not receive a personal phonecall to let him know this valuable information.

I wrapped up the pretty nails and decided to let the girls come over and bake some sugar cookies. I forgot how much fun that age is. We made ginormous snowman cookies and shaped while we started a movie and popped some warm popcorn. Too bad we were out of sprinkles...that's just colored sugar, right? Wrong. After borrowing some sugar and tubes of food coloring to make our very own sprinkles. *drip, drip

Note to self: Gel food coloring does NOT mix with sugar...and adding water...makes sugar slush.

Well, no one said experiments have to turn out successful. Instead, we took water bottles with colored water outside to draw in the snow (which was really just sleet at this point). As one of the girls pointed out the similarity to snowcones, the idea sparked in their fun-filled minds and they decided we should make snowcones out of the ice. I'm not one to hinder an educational experience, so I went along with it. We used blue and red food coloring to make purple ice, and added in some strawberry flavoring. Then, we ate it.

Yes, I ate it (and I made Mr. Tryitforthegirls eat it too).

After the movie and experimental festivities were complete, I walked the girls back over the their house and decided it was time to enjoy a much-needed evening in.