Happy New Year!

Mine started off interesting. I like to start the new year off planned. Do this, start that, yada yada yada. You know the drill.

I was all set to eat healthy on January 1st. My husband was grilling ribs for a neighbor friend up the street and I was inside cooking our dinner. Somewhere in the man conversation the day before, "Man, can you grill some ribs for me if I bring them over?" It was not communitated or understood, that we were invited over to eat at their house on New Years Day. So I hadn't made the courtesy call to the wife to ask, "Do you need me to bring anything?"

She called me around 2:00 on New Years Day and said they were planning to eat around 4:00. She asked, "What did you cook?"

I'm not going to say I was blindsided because a wife/mom/woman has a sixth sense in these situations. I was just holding onto denial, cooking our dinner and going on about my merry business like I didn't have to leave the house that day.

To shorten that story, I got my attitude in check and in addition to the ribs, we took over my cabbage, my beans and the cake I had baked. I say "my cabbage" and "my beans" because no one else was going to eat them. I cook my vegetables and beans without meat- not the southern way. I had attempted to make a separate pot of beans with sausage in it, and I burnt those up so bad I had to clean the pot outside in the freezing cold so the smell wouldn't linger in the house.

The good thing about neighborhood friends, is that they are like family. It was one-minute drive around the corner and we didn't have to get fancy. I wanted to do my hair but between the "surprise" phone call and cleaning up kitchen and the burnt pot, I only had time to take a shower and get dressed. We had a nice time. And she took a picture of us, which I love because the three of us are rarely in a photo together.

Unplanned Tuesday

I had to get my military ID replaced.

Dear Good Samaritan,

When you found my ID at your place of business, you should have kept it. It only took me two days to realize I didn't have it, and you were the first place I called after retracing my steps.

Thanks for nothing,

That was snarky of me wasn't it? I only wrote that here. But I thought it the whole time I was trying to track down my ID.

Never mind that story. It's too long. I used up a lot of gas, spent too much time in the cold, dealt with "we're about the close" and "check on Tuesday" attitudes.

I checked on Tuesday and found out, "We don't keep ID's" means it was probably thrown in the trash by whomever was freezing and working the gate the day it was turned in.

So hoping that I could look at least as good as I did in a ponytail on New Year's Day, I did my eyebrows, put on mascara, some lipstick and got ready for the long wait at Pass & ID. The good news is, we were in and out in 30 minutes. The bad news is, I have a mugshot ID that doesn't expire until January 2, 2022. Sigh with me.

Unplanned Wednesday

This was back to school day. But I already knew from the day before that school would be released 4 hours early because we'd be getting bad weather.

I was over the top excited and went grocery shopping, because that's what you do. I did not buy any butter so that I wouldn't bake any treats. We'd had our fair share over the past month.

Unplanned Thursday

By this point, what I mean by unplanned is I didn't know that the first week of January was going to be like this. It was so very exciting for us because we never get snow like this. Christopher was up and out by 8:18 - the timestamp on the second photo. I went for a walk in the nature trail shortly thereafter. It was so beautiful and truly the highlight of my week.

Unplanned Friday

Obviously no school. We live in the south. The day prior Christopher went out at 8:18, without eating anything. He returned for good, famished and freezing about five hours later and I wasn't going back outside. So our "plan" for Friday was to go out and build a snowman when it "warmed up". There wasn't much warming up with a day that started at 10 degrees. As we got ready I sang to myself, "a button nose and two eyes made out of coal..."

We improvised with two eyes made out of buttons, a carrot nose and raisins for the smile.

In my attempt to get one snowball to roll into a bigger ball, I said this isn't going to work. The snow was too soft and it was entirely too cold outside.

I placed everything in the snow, tucked in the scarf and let Frosty borrow my hat for the photo op, then went back in the house for good.

Unplanned Saturday

We all stayed in bed late. Christopher announced, "I think my enjoyment of the snow has started to die down". Papa Bear who I'd nicknamed Snow Scrooge Cranky Pants, cleaned the driveway and I wondered how early was too early to have a glass of wine. I found a stick of butter in the freezer and I baked.

Unplanned Sunday

We are still sitting in a warmed ice box in a town with frozen back roads. The neighborhood looks as it did on the first day.

And as I was sitting here typing this post, I was having that sixth sense that Monday would be unplanned as well.

It has been a wonderful unplanned extended holiday, but I understand now why Northerners aren't crazy about the snow.

How's your new year going?

New Year Week-End Review