Red Alaska

Today, the day after Blizzard Nemo, was a pretty boring day. It started with me checking out how much it snowed. My little David looked cold. Perhaps I should knit him a toga.

I looked out of the window and saw that my pencil and white thing didn't win against the blizzard. I think they are buried by at least 10 inches. Just to make sure, I tip toed out and nearly slipped on the glassy icy surface.

That was fun. I can only imagine how long it would have taken to dig the car out and take me to the hospital if I had fallen.

The rest of the nice warm morning inside I relished housewife winter activities. I found a cookbook my parents gave me for Christmas in 1994 and decided to bake something. I had a bag of brown sugar that I needed to use so I looked for recipes that called for brown sugar.

It says "The New Healthier Way" of which I am  not so sure since most recipes call for an  obscene amount of salt, butter or sugar.

It warmed my heart to see my mom's pretty handwriting.

My choice? A half-pound cake. This recipe calls for lots of butter and eggs! Imagine digesting that after not leaving the house for two days...

My half-pound cake turned out looking like the surface of the moon, but it is quite delicious and perfect with jam or nutella... mmmm. What isn't good with Nutella?

My half-pound moon cake

To balance things I also made some broccoli rabe.

I continued to read a book called, "Fortune's Children" that is a quite scandalous account of the rise and fall of the Vanderbilt family, written by a Vanderbilt too.

If you like Downton Abbey, you will love "Fortune's Children"

Then we enjoyed chatting over a nice long lazy lunch discussing ways to liven up an otherwise very dull winter. One idea was to switch seats at mealtime. Thrilling. People are very territorial about there seats. Don't laugh. I bet you even have your spot on the couch, breakfast table and meeting room. Now imagine if you switched that spot suddenly without warning in the middle of a blizzard. Wild! Right? This winter is killing me. Another idea was for me to write a psychological thriller called "Red Alaska". I'm sure some other bored snowed-in New Jersey housewife has already written that one. After debating ways to kill boredom we enjoyed some coffee then strapped on our boots and went to check out the snow. I really did want to walk in it despite almost killing myself falling in the morning.

A very blue sky after the storm

Beautiful snow dunes

Mr. Robin's house. 

Cute entrance to an old Victorian home

There is light at the end of the wintry tunnel though. We noticed that there was still a glimpse of light at 6 PM and that means that the days are getting longer and spring will be here in just a couple of months. In the meantime, perhaps I should get cracking on my novel, "Blue Alaska" and decide which side of the couch to sit on.