Digging out

Digging out is a euphemism for hubby snow blowing until the machine no longer works well.  Yesterday he went out after lunch as the storm was winding down.  It was cold, windy and still snowing.  He wasn't very happy.

But he persevered and the snow stopped, the clouds lifted a bit, and all the neighborhood men mere out in force moving their trucks, trailers and snow mobiles.  The atmosphere became quite festive.  Selim got a bit ticked when we moved our cars and he lost his secret hidey spot.  But mostly, everybody was bragging about how much snow they had to remove and acting quite manly about it all.

Since I kept getting in the way of the snow blower arc, I went inside and baked biscotti.  

I channeled my inner sister as I substituted the heck out of the recipe.  Lemon, who needs lemon when you can use orange. Still citrus, right?  Almonds?  No thanks, I'll add pistachios instead.  Vanilla?  How about 1/2 the amount required and add in a bit of rose water.  And Grand Marnier.  Half way through I realized I was thinking of Turkey with the pistachios and rose water.  The outcome: delicious.  Even Nedim, my non-sweet tooth husband enjoyed them.

For dinner, I took inspiration from Robert and made a skillet dish using tofu, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and zucchini. I topped it off with some cheese and Selim did a good job eating it over noodles.

We all went to bed early.  This morning the sun was out in full force.  It felt so good to open up the curtains and the front door to let in the sunshine.  We started out the day with donuts.  Selim wanted chocolate ones, so I added some cocoa powder to the recipe I used over the MLK weekend. A hit!

After some chores, we headed out for picture taking.  I'm enamored of my compost pile topped with snow.

 

Then we were on to the last of the driveway clean up and hole digging.  

That was followed by cave digging in the snowbank on the other side of the driveway.

In theory, it should have been a great time.  But for some reason, all three of us had a hard time talking nicely to each other.  We kept setting each other off, even though we didn't mean to.  It was like the beginning part of The Little Brute Family.  And even though the sun was shining, we couldn't find our rays of good feeling for more than a few minutes at a time.  May be we were hungry, as we went out after lunch time, but before we ate anything more than a little snack.

We came back inside for our lunch of sticks and stone bagels with cream cheese, left over pizza and last night's dinner, washed down with huge glasses of water with ice.  Snow moving is great cardio.  As our stomachs filled, our moods improved.  Now Nedim is at the computer watching a Turkish movie.  Selim is making a Lego creation and I'm about to turn on the golf.  I can't resist looking at Pebble Beach.

And I can't watch Pebble Beach without thinking of Grammy Bev.  When we flew in to Monterrey as kids, the first thing we did was take the 17 Mile Drive and stop at the Lodge to look out at the water.  Then we would drive into Carmel and have lunch or dinner, depending, at Cassanova and eat our hearts out.  I'll get back there some day.