So I am a little behind but better late than never I suppose. Work has been difficult as of late. It is manageable over all, and while I don't really want to go into it, i hit my breaking point in early February and opted to take a personal day before I made a stupid decision based on my mood.
It turned out to be a brilliant stroke of planning as we ended up getting blizzard conditions and the city shut down. I have lived in Wisconsin my whole life and have seen my share of winter storms, but this was a new experience for me. It wasn't really the snow that was the issue. We only had about 4-6 inches. It was the wind. I got caught out in it briefly coming home from bus stop. The force o the wind left me a little disoriented on a few times and I occasionally couldn't open my eyes because of all the debris it picked up. It only got worse from there. At one point I looked out the window at the howling wind and was a little unnerved by the scene outside. It was like something out of a sci-fi/fantasy movie.
The weather made for a perfect day to stay in my pajamas and get stuff done around the house. I got all my laundry done AND folded. This is almost unheard of for me. I got the kitchen cleaned and promptly made a mess again. I have been long to make this caramel-apple pie and had some apples to use up, so I decided to tackle it.
Essentially, you make the crust, the apple filling, and the caramel sauce all separately, assemble them together, and then bake it in the oven to meld them all together. I am utter rubbish at sauces so the caramel sauce didn't turn out quite as caramel-ly as I had hoped for texture wise but the flavor was there. It was a lot of fuss (and a lot of dirty dishes), but overall I think it turned out well if slightly too sweet.
Because my husband can't have apples, I also made a cake for him. Nothing special; just a quick mix. Of course, domestic bliss was short-lived when I burnt dinner while I was on the phone talking to my mother and ignoring the simmer that had turned into a boil.
I applied for school for this fall, got some knitting done, and even played some video games. It was exactly what I needed as far as days of go, and because I was so productive, I could spend Saturday with my friends drinking tea and knitting. I am only 2 repeats away from finishing the lace scarf. Hooray!
Later on in the month I came down with a nasty respiratory infection. Normally when I am sick, I hunker down with some tea and string and bad movies and fell sorry for myself. However, I was so sick and feeling so lousy the best I could manage was to prop up a book on my pillow and lay in bed. (This was probably a good thing because I was reading the Mortal Instruments series and couldn't put them down. I would have been completely non-functional until I had finished them, so while I hated being sick, I had a good reason to stay in bed reading). The URI knocked me completely low. I ended up needing an inhaler to help me breath for a bit.
And I love love loved the Mortal Instruments series. It was angsty or sure and occasionally annoying that nothing good ever seemed to happen for these characters until the end of the 3rd book. But I couldn't put them down. I am debating whether or not I want to read the 4th book which is coming out in April. They were so dark for so long and the 3rd book had such a satisfying ending I am afraid to jinx it.
