February 28, 2021

 

 Baking bread, particularly sourdough, has become my new hobby.  I started a sourdough starter back in November, just to see if I could do it.  It worked and these little round beauties have been on my counter weekly ever since.  It's especially delicious toasted with raspberry jam.

 Amarillo never looks prettier than it does after a frost.  It's like the world is in black and white. It's my favorite Amarillo weather.

 What is it about cupcakes with sprinkles?? So festive. Do you prefer chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, chocolate cake with vanilla frosting, vanilla cake with vanilla frosting or vanilla cake with chocolate frosting? We had all four.

  It's a good thing that we already have an appointment to get some windows replaced. Add this one to the list. We've had record-breaking cold weather lately, and I discovered this window one morning. I'm assuming it's related to the cold.

  Bailey got a sweet Valentine from a boy in her class. Unfortunately we didn't hear him come to the door to drop it off.  She found it on the doorstep.  The best we could do was thank him through his mom on Facebook.

  Yep, it's cold. Texas just isn't built for this kind of weather.  All over the state there were power and water outages. So many people without heat, with broken pipes, and melting snow for water, for days.  We were so, so lucky to have power, heat, and water throughout the whole storm. Because of the cold and to conserve energy, the schools were cancelled all week.  What was supposed to be a four-day weekend, turned into a 10-day "weekend."

 This is the cute view I have many days when Shelbi calls to talk. FaceTime is cool.

  We woke up to four or five inches of snow, and with the bitter cold weather, very little chance of it melting soon. Sydney decided she wanted to shovel our driveway. Look what a good job she did. It's not a small driveway and it was still really, really cold.  Good work!

  So much for the cleared driveway.  This picture was taken nearly exactly 24 hours after the above one.  We ended up with about eight inches of snow after this wave of the storm. So pretty. I love it when it snows and snows all day. Especially when I've already gotten the call for the snow day tomorrow.

These balloon pedestals have been the most useful thing to come out of my time as the Relief Society activity coordinator.  Jeff made eight of these for table centerpieces for a Relief Society dinner one year.  I pull a couple of them out on birthdays or other holidays to decorate with. It's much easier than hanging streamers and balloons from the wall.

One night we were all sitting around the table, playing a game, when Brynn came out from under the table and announced she found an Easter egg! Sure enough, it still had candy in it! That's an impressive bunny to get an egg to stay hidden under the table for 10 months.

  Back last March, when the quarantine first started, I decided it would be good time to finally clean out my kitchen and reorganize my cabinets.  It only took me eleven months to get the motivation to finally do it.  In my mind it was going to take days.  But really it only took the better part of a morning.  I had three big boxes of old stuff to donate and plenty of junk to trash.  A lot of the donate items were wedding gifts from 22 1/2 years ago. 

 Ryan fancies himself quite the Just Dance dancer.  He's got this routine down.

  She used to be afraid of the ants that sometimes creep onto my bathroom floor.  For some reason, this day she decided that they needed to be saved.  She collected some itty-bitty Barbie accessories as her tools and carefully scooped up the ants.  Then she let them crawl onto the wall, where they were safe from big feet.

     

Two semi-final basketball games this week, the winners moving on to the city championships. Of course the boy who really likes basketball and had high hopes for a city championship was on the team that lost and the boy who was ready to be done with basketball was on the team that won. There were some tears and some decisions to be made. Erik's final game, the city championship, was scheduled for the same time as the first orchestra concert that was allowed this year. He had to choose which one he would attend. He picked the game.  Ryan was also a part of this concert. Can you see that good-looking cello player right next to the conductor? 

 

 It's a good thing that Erik chose to play in the game because the concert lasted a whopping six minutes.  Following the concert I raced across town to join Jeff for the second half of Erik's game.  The halftime score was 30-10, NOT for us. Oh well. We knew it might not be a close game. They already lost to this team in the regular season. The other team was much taller and better coached.  Erik's team still had a fun game and celebrated their great season with a crazy mosh pit-like huddle after the game.  Erik was all smiles.

  The cold is behind us and Spring is in sight. A Saturday morning with 50 degree weather called for a walk around the neighborhood. This view isn't the best one from my walk, but those sprinklers in the distance felt really good when the wind caught them and gave me a little sprinkle as I walked by. Hopefully with the warmer weather coming, more of these walks are in my future.