Walkabout The Snow Day

Depending on your line of work (teachers) and your age (still in grade school) you will see a ton of snow days in Kentucky. I don’t get many snow days as I am not a teacher nor am I in school. Snow Days in the South are a big joke to people up North who get snow in feet not inches. Down here, it would be insane to send a standard yellow school bus down curvy country roads that haven’t seen salt trucks ever. We got several inches of snow and several inches of ice overnight and I got a snow day! Sometimes it is good to live on back roads. It took most of the day for the road crews in our area to get the main parkways and interstates clear. We’re still waiting for our main highway to be cleared today (day two).

On our snow day we made a big pot of chicken and dumplings and sipped on hot coffee through the morning.

This photo of the chicken stock and the onions, celery and carrots was too beautiful not to share. Isn’t food just BEAUTIFUL! You can tell why my weight loss is so slow going. Hah!

I painted my nails blue while we watched tons of episodes of Bones, Leverage and Rules of Engagement. I also caught up on some reading–glorious, glorious reading.

In the afternoon, I donned three shirts, two pants, a sweater, hat and insulated overalls. I hadn’t ventured out of the house much because I hate being cold, but given the proper preparation I love it! I romped in just about every snow drift on the farm to show how impressively deep the snow had gotten–Several feet.

I attempted to  throw a snowball at Kit but quickly realized it was much to powdery for any real fun. A snowman would have been out of the question.  However, I had a grand time romping in drifts, making a snow angel, spying tracks of and seeing some actual wildlife.
We brought the camera: 

One foot on top of snow and the other sunk to what I assume was the ground.

I remember making dozens of snow angels as a kid until I got the perfect one. Then my brothers usually walked through it.

Sunken into a drift that built up by the neighbor’s fence row. My knee is below the snow line.

Had to pose by my not-so-perfect snow angel.

We wanted to see the half frozen pond and had to stop in short to keep from scaring off the pair of moose enjoying the pond. Okay, moose is a weird inside joke and it is what we call Canadian geese. If I explained it you would just think I am more crazy and less funny.

The obligatory Snow Day Selfie! I hope you guys got to stay home with your loved ones. And if you didn’t get to yesterday, then make a point to spend a day with the people who make you smile soon!

Happy Challenge

In the wake of the Government shutdown and the sort-of-launched Affordable Care Act, I have noticed that there is very little enjoyable things on the news feeds of any of my social network sites. Even hanging out with my friends eventually leads to the depressing topic of over 800K people out of work. Minus those 400K who are back to work….It still means that the livelihood of many people has been put on hold until some unannounced date.

This Happy Challenge should probably be something we do everyday. Especially now because everyone seems so unhappy with things–regardless of your side. Add something happy to your life each day. Whether it be in conversation or any social network you belong to. If you update your status message a few times a day or share links with friends let one of those shares be happy.
Restrictions on this Happy Challenge? Really not much. It has to be something that makes you happy. It could be pictures of animals too adorable for words such as those found on Cuteoverload.com.

It could be that hilarious video that had you snorting milk through your nose:

Or, perhaps you would like to share a new favorite recipe that is just to die for, like this recipe for Oven Fried Mushrooms I found on Cooking Tip Of the Day.

You can share personal stuff or just about anything. Make sure it is something that makes you happy and isn’t related to all this jacked up stuff that the news media is fully covering for us.

You’ve been challenged. Share something happy.

What made you happy today?
Please share with me, I do need more happy on my blog/facebook/tumblr/twitter/instagram/greader/reddit/inbox.

~Kat~

State Fair 2013 Part Two

So here is the second part of what we got to see at the KY state fair on the 20th. Wanna see Part One? Kit was sad that the goats were mostly gone and the cattle hadn’t all come in yet, but we got to see some fun stuff anyway.

There was a charming “petting” zoo part of the fair designed for kids. It was called discovery farm. There was a lack of educational info and not many people working the animal booths. Also, there were signs above every cage warning that the animals can and will bite. These goats were just too cute to pass up. 

I mean, come on, how can you just walk away from a pile of sleeping piglets??

This peppermint chocolate cake really struck Kit and me. It was colorful and my chocolate stomach started grumbling almost immediately. Not knowing the details, I am betting that it was a rich chocolate cake—like devil’s food—and a cream cheese peppermint frosting would be creamy and minty at the same time. Yummo!
Kit and I also wanted to submit our pickles and pasta sauce for next year. Some of the pickles were a little rough looking by comparison. I’m hoping we can at least get things entered into our county fair for judging.
The theme for various ages and skill levels was music. There were some really cute ones. This was easily my favorite. The colors and design was very beautiful.

This type of cake is gorgeous to look at and although I wouldn’t be interested in taking a bite, I loved this detail they put into the fondant sheet music.
The most popular sewing crafts are quilting and counted cross stitch. I was lucky to find these little gems among the CCXstitch. I love the detail in this peacock. Awesome sauce!
I really like the display for this intricate embroidery design even though I haven’t the foggiest why it is on a paddle. I can’t imagine setting steaming pots of pasta on it or chasing an errant youth around the house with this work of art.

Whenever I look at the rows and rows of quilts I get super excited and then sad all at the same time. I love the patterns, colors, stitches and love that people put into their quilts. I get sad because I don’t know how to make a quilt like these beauties. I just want to make a simple block squared quilt, but it is such a large undertaking by hand that I fear I would get overwhelmed. I don’t know how to use a sewing machine so that would be an even larger undertaking–buying and learning how to use one proficiently without assistance.

My all-time favorite at the fair was this quilt. I cannot believe this didn’t win any awards. The judges were obviously off their rockers and out of their sewing circle minds! These are my favorite colors and the pattern is to die for!!

One of the last things we did at the fair was watch a 30 minute musical about the War of 1812. I was really impressed with the young people involved in putting on the show. I wondered how they perceived the audience and when I looked back I saw, a row of ancients with their chins on their chests, and behind me a woman whose entire bottom fell out of her 32 oz. soda. The soda barely missed me and Kit and made the poor lady looked like she had wet herself.

Despite the non-ideal audience, Kit and I kept eye-contact and reacted to the emotions and songs that they put on. My best two word summary is alligator horses!!! Go ahead, look up the New Orleans battle and see how the soldiers scared the shit out of their enemy!!

Ta ta for now!

~Kat

Day 356: Animal Pileup

They show their love for each other in weird, weird ways. At the end of a day where dogwood winter has set in the animals want to pile up like puppies.

Not only is Isabella hugging her brother’s butt, she is getting squashed by my legs wrapped up in blankets. She stayed like this for over 30 minutes. That is a fairly long time for our spazz of a cat.

Day 334: Camo Cat

Had to share this picture because it was too cute. The background is a bed sized bean bag (yes, it’s awesome), and the kitty on top is a tortoiseshell cat named Ivy. The same one who acted as my movie watching companion a few weeks back.

It may not be a perfect match but she is blending fairly well. Maybe this breed of fat faced cats was meant to lurk in furniture and skulk beneath shadowed loveseats.

She nabbed my seat when I went to the bathroom and since it is a bean bag the weight tends to droop to the middle. There was lots of adjusting before I got my seat back and she was lying on top of me.
Oh, cats…