The ice is melting!

Hooray! We get to leave the house today! I'm very excited to be able to go to a store, as we're out of a lot of food. Since we were just stuck inside, I actually did a bit of cooking. At first, it was fun. I made a slow-cooker roast on Sunday. A nice curry-tinged vegetable barley soup for lunch and a delicious mashed potato and cheese stuffed meatloaf for dinner on Monday. Tuesday we had spaghetti and meatballs (mmm, comfort food). Actually, I had planned on eating leftovers on Tuesday, thinking it would be the last day of our confinement, but by dinnertime, Trey insisted on fresh food. It was good, though. But by wednesday, really, I was over it. We ate leftover soup for lunch and frito pie for dinner. (Frito pie also qualifies as comfort food in this house.) But today we get to leave the house!

It's not raining outside, but it sure sounds like it. Every now and again there's a heavy "kthunk" sound on the roof from a larger chunk of ice falling off the tree. There are two big trees in our yard, and I'm very grateful they didn't break.

Since my only entertainment these last few days were the brief periods I snuck outside to take some pictures, I'm going to a small portion with you. Because, I have to do something with them, since I never bothered to submit them to any news sites. With little fanfare, I give you:

The ice storm of 2007:
Day one (or, Hey-we're-gettin'-an-ice-storm-day):
Little baby icicle

A smattering of ice by the big tree in the back yard

Just the tiniest bit of ice surrounding a tree seed

The field behind our house with just a touch of ice and a fair amount of puddled water


Day two (or, whoo-hoo-lookee-it's-snow-falling-from-the-sky day):
Ice covered branch and leaves. It's still just a little bit of ice.


Ice-covered tree seed from my neighbor's tree



Our backyard: Note the tiny little bit of snow on the ground, and also note the absence of tree limbs hanging close to the ground.



Look! Snow! (and oh, hey look! I've switched from uploading to blogger to linking to them from my smugmug site because it's faster)


Icicles at night
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Day three (or, the seriously-it's-icy-out-there-but-oh-my-god-I-need-to-get-out-of-my-house day)

Ice covering the ground


Remember the neighbor's tree with the little seeds?


Same tree, close-up of seeds (also, cooly snake-like)


Pic of the backyard: remember the big tree and the neighbor's from the other photo? No? That's because the limbs were way high up out of the picture. Now they're weighted down at least ten feet.


Icy field behind my house:


Icy twigs

Ice storm, day 1:


ice storm, day 2:


ice storm, day3:


Help me. I'm going completely stir crazy. Husband is sick, kid is a little bit sick, I'm dying to just go to the grocery store because I had only anticipated being stuck inside the house until today. But I'm not taking the kid anywhere in the car, that would entail far too much work. I'd like to take her for a walk to explore the icy goodness outside, but she doesn't seem to want to do anything but play around the house in her pajamas. Not even to play with a two-foot long icicle. I've been begging her for the last hour to go, but she insists on playing more princess. I don't care, I'm going for a walk anyway. I hope.

a little bit of snow

and a little bit more ice


Z and I have been cooped up inside for two days, and looking at at least one more. Hopefully, it'll full on snow by tomorrow, and we'll be able to go outside and play in it. I've been out a couple of times, taking some pictures, but for some reason, Z has shown almost no interest in going outside. Tomorrow, if there's snow on the ground, she's going outside whether she likes it or not. ("You will go outside and play in the snow and you will like it!")

We are a bit stir crazy. I can only play princess so many times in a day. Trey's been working at his shop, though not too busy as most of the town is hunkered down. Maybe after all this blows over he'll get a little run of people with minor dents.

Working on an ice storm gallery here. And wishing we'd gotten our fireplace checked out so we could start a little fire. Oh well.

It's one of those cold, gray days that we don't usually get in Texas. 40 degrees, rainy, ice and possibly snow in the forecast. There was flooding in the morning due to all the rain. My sister's in town and we went to Ikea just to get out of the house; it was packed. The funniest part about it was all the people who, like my sister, were completely unprepared for the cold weather. Lots of thin hoodies and shocked faces in the crowd.

I'm working on the video for Zoey's first dance/gymnastics recital. It's probably going to take me a little while to get it together, but I did want to report that Zoey absolutely stole the show. And I'm not just saying that because she's my kid. (Okay, maybe I am, I don't know.) She had enthusiasm beaming out of her pores, and wasn't the least bit affected by stage fright. Rather, she seemed to eat up the attention and spit out smiles. Except for when she got distracted by the big mirror to the left of the stage, because she also seemed pretty enamored of her own reflection dancing in her recital. It was all just too adorable.

A big hug and thanks to Kilian and de Schmog...

for letting me sing with them Saturday night. It was the most fun I've had in a long time. I didn't want the night to end. In fact, I still relive it sometimes in my head. Ah, the glory. And thanks to all who came out and didn't seem to mind too much that I wasn't Diane :-) I felt a little like Mark Wahlberg in "Rockstar," minus the leather pants.

There's more pictures that my sister took here, and K's got some up on his site here. Also, some video: